Forge into the Future: Identifying Core Competencies and Important Skills, Knowledge, and Abilities (SKAs) for Junior Navy Medical Service Corps Officers

摘要

The purpose of this paper is to identity core competencies and important skills, knowledge, and abilities (SKAs) required by junior Navy Medical Service Corps officers to be successful in the next five to ten years. In addition, this study tested similarities and differences among responses within subspecialty groups of the Medical Service Corps including: Administrators, Scientists, and Clinicians. Two waves of the Delphi technique were employed. In Wave I, junior Navy Medical Service Corps officers identified the five most important competencies and their important SKAs. An expert panel of six Lieutenant Commanders reviewed, sorted, and identified competencies from Wave I into 11 domains. From the expert analysis, the researcher developed a questionnaire for use in Delphi technique, Wave II. In Wave II, junior Navy Medical Service Corps officers rated the SKAs from each domain based on importance. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to test similarities and differences between responses and among subspecialty groups within the Medical Service Corps. Results indicated that Core Values, Leadership traits, subspecialty expertise and operational understanding were most critical for junior Medical Service Corps officer in the next five to ten years. Many similar opinions merged among the Administrators and Scientists suggesting that although these two subspecialty groups evolved from different educational and professional backgrounds, they share similar opinions on success in the Corps today. In contrast, Clinicians and Administrators shared in only one opinion, the importance of Subspecialty Expertise. Once statistical interaction between groups was revealed, post hoc tests were conducted to determine a significant difference of opinion. Results revealed that Clinicians Vs. Others have a real difference of opinion with 36 of 100 SKAs significant. Administrators Vs. Others showed 11 of 100 SKAs statistically different.