Professionalism In Health Care

Professionalism In Health Care
Professionalism In Health Care
Each chapter in Professionalism in Health Care: A Primer for Career Success presents a Case Study following the career of Carla, a medical assistant. Reread each of the six Case Studies and write a short (two to three pages) summary of Carla’s growth as medical assistant. Included in your summary should be a critique of the Case Studies for both accuracy and effectiveness. In your summary/critique, also comment on the impact unprofessional behaviors have on communication, group dynamic, morale, and patient outcomes.
What does it mean to be a professional?
A profession is a vocation or ‘calling,’ especially one that requires a high level of skill, knowledge, or science.
“A trade or occupation pursued for higher motives, to a proper standard” is another useful description.
A distinction is frequently made between a professional (i.e., someone who makes a livelihood from their trade or career) and an amateur (i.e., someone who does not make a living from their trade or occupation) (ie, someone who might do the same or a similar thing, but without remuneration).
But the distinction isn’t just that one is paid and the other isn’t; a ‘professional’ performance is good, polished, and of high quality, whereas a ‘amateurish’ performance is the polar opposite – regardless of how much or how little money was spent.
A natural conclusion is that if a person plans to rely on a certain trade or occupation as their primary source of income, they must be expert in it and recognized as such.
What does this mean in terms of medicine?
“All professions conspire against the laity,” says George Bernard Shaw in his play The Doctor’s Dilemma (1911)
Given today’s patient-centered and shared decision-making approach in medicine, Bernard Shaw’s cynicism may be anachronistic.
Instead of using specialist knowledge to create distance from, and dependent on, the public, modern medical professionalism involves the capacity to communicate specialist knowledge, diagnosis, and treatment options in an easy-to-understand manner.
Confidentiality, consistency, trust, honesty, and compassion are all aspects of professionalism.
Professionalism used to be defined as belonging to a select group of people who had specialized knowledge and expertise.
In an increasingly consumerist healthcare sphere, information about health and disease is available to anybody with access to a computer, and the idea of professionalism in healthcare has had to adapt and alter.
“Professionalism is a basket of qualities that enables us to trust our advisors,” Dame Janet Smith said.
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A patient’s faith in a doctor is no longer taken for granted; it must be earned via the demonstration of suitable professional traits such as skill, probity, and integrity.
Doctors in Society: Medical Professionalism in a Changing World, published by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) in 2005, sought to rethink the nature and role of medical professionalism in modern society.
Professionalism in healthcare, according to the report, can be described as:
“A collection of attitudes, behaviors, and connections that support the public’s trust in physicians.”
Furthermore, the RCP working group determined that doctors are devoted to the following in their daily practice:
integrity
altruism compassion
Excellence in continual improvement in collaboration with other members of the healthcare team.
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The belief that professional traits are automatically inherited upon qualifying stems from earlier concepts of “lofty professionalism,” as explained above.
Because medicine is a profession, such reasoning implies that all doctors are professionals by default.
This booklet, on the other hand, demonstrates that this is not the case.
Professionalism in modern medicine is something that can and should be learned.
Being aware of a professional’s expectations can help to improve patient care.
To help raise standards, it is critical to continue to build communication skills, clinical knowledge, and teamwork abilities.
Practice makes perfect, according to other professional standards.
Similar values of trust, responsibility, and honesty apply in other professions as well.
“Those involved in providing legal advice and representation have long held the role of trusted adviser,” according to the Solicitor Regulation Authority’s Code of Conduct.
Acting with integrity, not allowing independence to be compromised, acting in the best interests of each client, and behaving in a way that maintains the public’s trust in the individual solicitor and the supply of legal services are all mandatory principles that apply to all legal professionals.
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Professional behavior is regulated by the Teaching Agency; if a teacher’s standards fall below the required norms, punishments are enforced, and in significant cases of professional misconduct, they may be disqualified from teaching.
The medical profession does not bear sole responsibility for standards and regulation.
Is professionalism synonymous with perfectionism?
The pressures of attempting to be professional in the medical profession have an opposite side.
Doctors are notorious for their perfectionism.
Perfectionists aim for flawlessness, hold themselves to unrealistically high performance standards, and are unduly critical of their own actions.
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Many doctors, rather than bringing the profession into contempt, strive for exceptionally high standards and may be at risk of burnout in their pursuit of high-quality treatment and patient safety.