Remediation in Practice: A Polarity to be Managed

Originally developed in the business literature, a polarity is a concept where 2 distinctive and opposing characteristics (poles), each presenting advantages and disadvantages or opportunities and pitfalls, must both be taken into account to ensure effective management of a challenging problem. Managing a polarity is a thorny endeavor because it entails striving to maximize the benefits of both poles while simultaneously minimizing or controlling the downsides of each. Previous investigations into stakeholder conceptualizations of remediation led us to suggest that remediation is framed in stakeholders' minds simultaneously as an educational endeavor (ie, the remediatee needs educational support to regain full competence) and a regulatory act (ie, the revocation of the individual's professional right to self-regulate their practice and learning). In this article, we argue that viewing remediation for practicing physicians as a polarity to be managed offers a framework that can further the conversation about how to address some of remediation's challenges.