To reflect or not? Reflective practice in radiation therapy

Abstract

Therapy radiographers may be empowered to contribute more freely to the multi-disciplinary professional team if they critically reflect on their inherent clinical knowledge and perspectives. Critical reflection may help radiographers articulate the rationale behind professional decisions and proposed evidence-based treatment planning and delivery protocols, and reveal knowledge embedded in practice. Documentation of professional reflection may yet become a cornerstone for continuing professional development. Despite a paucity of rigorous empirical investigation, ‘reflective practice’ has become focal in nursing education. Three concepts appear confused, ill defined or interchangeable in the literature: ‘reflective practice’, ‘reflection’ and the ‘reflective practitioner’. Debate continues into the value of ‘reflective practice’ as a system: it remains problematic, it is difficult to conceptualise, it appears to have no clear or universal definition and no certain framework or guidelines for its implementation. In reflecting on action there may be strong hindsight bias which may invalidate conclusions reached. There are doubts raised about the benefits of structured models to implement reflective practice. Belonging to such an empirically based profession, it may be that educators and clinical therapy radiographers incorporate only those elements of systematised ‘reflective practice’ that can be empirically demonstrated to be beneficial to the profession, and will result in improved patient outcomes. There is no compelling evidence yet that any systematised ‘reflective practice’ is inherently more beneficial to therapy radiographers than radiographers continuing to reflect as they do now, with or without documentation.