Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
GROUP A: PHYSICIANS
GROUP B: PARAMEDICS
8%
14%
25%
35%
41%
19%
42%
16%
GROUP C: PSYCHO-SOCIAL WORKERS
ROUP D: VISION REHABILITATION
PROFESSIONALS
21%
25%
29%
30%
29%
25%
20%
21%
Cluster 1
Cluster 2
Cluster 3
Cluster 4
FIgUre 8.2
Clusters distribution in four groups of professionals.
The management cluster mostly characterizes physicians and refers to the need to man-
age the working team. Their accounts seem to have contributed particularly to this cluster
construction. Working in a multidisciplinary team determines the necessity to consider
different needs and points of view for these professionals. A comprehensive vision reha-
bilitation service seems to imply the necessity to work on professionals' interactions.
Therefore, working together is not just a resource because it produces an additional job
that overcomes problems caused by multidisciplinarity. In addition, in this cluster the tar-
get is the team itself and the professional function is focused on management and coor-
dination. Moreover, this representation of the rehabilitation process is not vision-specific.
This representation of the professional function focuses on problematic situations and
puts aside the visual center specificity. Therefore, it targets the team of professionals work-
ing on interventions' definition rather than the person with disability needs.
Accounts of paramedics and physicians have particularly contributed to the construc-
tion of cluster 3 (prevention). In fact, cluster distribution in the paramedics' group is
similar to that of the physicians', although it does not overlap with it. In fact, cluster 3 char-
acterizes both of these groups, but for paraprofessionals it seems to be the most important
one. These professionals seem to focus on disabilities associated with visual disability,
giving particular attention to multihandicapped children who need a multidisciplinary
approach. Therefore, professional function is focused on a particular aspect of disability,
especially intellectual, losing visual specificity. The patient is represented as multihandi-
capped and the professional function does not deal directly with visual disability.
It was interesting to note that psychologists have an almost equal distribution in all clus-
ters not being particularly characterized by any of them, suggesting that these profession-
als do not have professional function specificity. Nevertheless, clusters 1 and 3 are slightly
more represented. Hence, probably like physicians and paramedics, these professionals
