Experts are needed in every field to teach other employees specific skills, advice, and strategies for solving problems. Most expertise focuses on a single skill that they improve over time and become fully experienced. Experts are not born; they are made in the field through practice, training, and gain experience over the years. Experts develop cognitive processes that lead to higher performance. According to Anderson (2009), high-level skill expertise is developed through extensive practice. Every individual aspiring to gain expertise needs to acquire knowledge and skills. Webster’s dictionary defines an expert as an individual who acquires specialized skills or expertise in a specific subject through professional training and practical experience. Gaining knowledge in the field like pharmacy requires hard work, prolonged experience through training, and practice in the area to reach a genius level of performance. Years of experience only do not guarantee one to become an expert. The paper will discuss the stages in developing expertise in the field of pharmacy, dimension involved, and how the brain changes as one obtains skills.
Stages in the Development of Expertise
The process of attaining expertise is continuous and takes time as one gains experience, education, and practices. The process begins with an introduction to the domain through acquiring instructions involved in the domain, acquiring knowledge on the area, and practicing over time. A learner in the field of pharmacy cannot move from novice to expert in a single day; one has to prove through various stages that they have adequate knowledge and experience. The first stage is a novice, where students get introduced to the topic. According to Persky & Robinson (2017), the novice stage in pharmacy entails an introduction to the foundation of science related to pharmacotherapy. Students are then taught the process of patient care like medication list immunization schedule, patient history, and clinical note writing.
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The second stage is the advanced beginner stage, where the learner begins to see different aspects of every situation encountered. During this stage, pharmacy students start to get introductory pharmacy practice experiences (IPPE) and early advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPE) in the field. Students can easily acquire relevant information with ease Persky & Robinson (2017). The third stage is the competent stage, where the learner has already increased autonomy and ability to develop a patient-specific care plan. During this stage, the learner understands the risk involved when offering care. The learner begins to develop a routine and deliberate long-term planning. The fourth step is the proficiency stage, where the student begins developing expertise through incorporating intellectual and emotional stimuli into experience attained from learning ( Anderson, 2009) . Lastly is the expert stage, where the student has learned to recognize patterns of clues for better decision making through the use of intuition.
Dimensions Involved in the Development of Expertise
Proceduralist is the first dimension which describes the process by which an individual converts their factual knowledge of specific area into efficient course representation. The pharmacy student or individual learns the structure of the pharmacy, rehearse it until it becomes muscle memory. Tactical learning is another dimension that involves the acquisition of tactics and actions required in resolving problems ( Anderson, 2009) . Tactics involve methods and strategies applied in accomplishing a particular goal. The pharmacist acquires tactics and learns techniques of recalling various medications and will not have tread somewhere before issuing the medicine. In the third dimension, the pharmacist learns to remember different solutions that had to be figured out in the past.
Strategic learning is the third dimension that involves acquiring information and techniques for better organization of the solution. In this dimension, an individual who is acquiring expertise in a particular field learns how to organize materials optimally for quick recalling of the information when solving a problem. Since pharmacists deal with diverse patients who require different medications, they need strategic learning for faster recalling of information. Lastly is the problem-solving dimension, which differs in the area of expertise. Individuals in various fields like pharmacology show an enhanced memory of information, which enables them to remember multiple problems and patterns. As one gains expertise, they develop the ability to perceive issues in diverse ways for effective problem-solving.
How Obtaining Skills makes Changes to the Brain
Learning and acquisition of new skills have a significant impact and influence on the brain. The brain strengthens as the individual acquires more expertise in a certain field. When an individual, for instance, the pharmacist is practicing issuance of medication to become proficient, the brain consistently attempts to go through reorganization, which prompts skill specific changes. With time as one gains more knowledge, the brain neurons form a connection which makes it possible to retain more information ( Bernardi et al., 2013 ) . When an expert is practicing on their field, the brain does not work very hard since, with time, it adapts to the skill itself. Experts reveal minimal volume recruitment of their task-related areas, the strong connection among related tasks, and high information integration reflected through a higher signal temporal variability. As the brain changes from the acquisition of skills, language skills, verbal intelligence, and memory also change significantly ( Hennessy, 2017) .
In summary, experts in various fields are made, and they acquire skills over time through learning, training, and experience. One has to be patient and devote adequate time to learn and practice to become proficient and substantial in their areas of expertise. One needs to set a plan, study, get a mentor, and develop skills required to become a mentor. As one learns and develops skills in a particular area, the brain substantially changes and reorganizes itself. Experts are recognized by students, scholars, and other people as a reliable source of knowledge and experiences.
References
Anderson, J.R. (2009). Cognitive psychology and its implications. New York, NY: Worth Publisher
Bernardi, G., Ricciardi, E., Sani, L., Gaglianese, A., Papasogli, A., Ceccarelli, R., ... & Pietrini, P. (2013). How skill expertise shapes the brain functional architecture: an fMRI study of visuo-spatial and motor processing in professional racing-car and naïve drivers. PloS one , 8 (10).
Hennessy, T. J. (2017). Identifying Neurochemical Changes During Sensorimotor Skill Learning Using Functional MR Spectroscopy (Doctoral dissertation, McGill University).
Persky, A. M., & Robinson, J. D. (2017). Moving from novice to expertise and its implications for instruction. American journal of pharmaceutical education , 81 (9). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5738945/
