Using Duoethnography to Cultivate an Understanding of Professionalism: Developing Insights into Theory, Practice, and Self Through Interdisciplinary Conversations

Abstract

In this chapter, we examine what it means to be a professional by unpacking how professionalism is interpreted within nursing, counseling, and teaching contexts. Diversity, regarding the notion of professionalism, yields important information about how the concept is understood by individuals. Our dialogic and dialectic encounters facilitated deeper reflection on our own personal biases and understandings, which in turn shifted our beliefs about how professionalism is enacted within the workplace. This transformation in our way of thinking helped us to better articulate for others, and ourselves, what it means to be a professional. Together, we have come to understand that professionalism is not a concrete and static concept, but rather a dynamic web of interconnectedness that guides our growth and development as individuals. This work contributes to the duoethnography literature by illustrating how it can be used as an interdisciplinary approach for promoting professional reflective practice.