The past decade has seen widespread
research on systematic evaluation of
the competence of health professionals.
Such activity usually has been carried
out in accordance with the prevailing
psychological paradigms, in which competence is represented as a trait, or as an
intrapsychic factor. However, even when
competence has been delimited as problem-solving, the research generally iden
tified a strong situational influence on
performance. In this article are assembled a set of diverse but complementary
arguments for dispensing with the conventional representations of professional competence. In their place is pro
posed a relational model in which competence in health professions is seen as
the aggregated adaptations of practi
tioners to the set of special social cir cumstances that obtain within the situational boundaries of their profession.
It is argued that a thorough under standing of the content of professional
situations is a necessary prerequisite for
successful evaluation of professional
competence, since competent behavior
is lodged in a network of probabilistic
relationships with the surroundings.
Also discussed are selected procedural
implications of this new model for the
conduct of investigations of profes sional situations.
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