Professionalism in Healthcare

According to the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education (see Bossers, Kernaghan, Hodgins, Merla, O’Connor, Van Kessel, 1999, p.16-21), professionalism can be subdivided into three different sections. These include professional parameters, professional behaviours and values, as well as professional responsibilities. Professional parameters simply relate to the principles of ethical and lawful matters while professional behaviours and values are pertaining to the area of knowledge, abilities, way of carrying one’s self in behaviour and appearance, also, fostering bonds with patients and team members.Professionalism in Healthcare Sample

For the purpose of this assignment, professional behaviours and values will be discussed. Behaviours simply mean attitudes portrayed while values mean beliefs of one’s self. Professional behaviours and values are broken down into altruism, acceptance and non-judgemental attitude, confidentiality, accountability, communication between professional and patient, collegiality, as well as self improvement.Professionalism in Healthcare Sample

Altruism is defined as an unselfish act in response to a goal in offering service to others.

(Shrank, Reed, Jermnstedt, 2004). This applies when a patient comes to a health care professional for treatment. In this situation, the patient’s needs are crucial to attend to rather than the individual professional’s own needs but this does not mean that the professional must put aside or sacrifice their health or other factors in their life for the sake of the patient. In terms of giving care, compassion and treatment to the patient, a professional must prioritize the patient first rather than himself. (College of physicians and surgeons of Ontario, 2007).

Say for example, a physician finishes his shift for the day and is about to leave his workplace when an emergency accident case of a child comes in. There is a lack of workforce at that period of time as it is the holiday season. Instead of leaving the hospital to attend to an appointment made after work, the physician should attend to the case before leaving.

Altruism can also be associated with genuineness, empathy and compassion while performing a task. According to Gerrig (2008), when a person is evoked with empathy towards another individual, altruistic motive is created. In other words, empathy gives rise to help being provided to the individual in need. Indirectly, altruism not only enriches the experience of a professional but also matures the professional with in numerous cases handled every day. Professionals with altruism will have good social relationships with patients and colleagues. On the whole, altruism is being passionate about one’s profession.

Another key ingredient in professionalism is acceptance and non-judgemental attitude. According to DuBois and Miley (see Biestek ,1957) , accepting a patient include listening and responding to patient’s feelings with sensitivity, showing sincere concern towards the problem, recognizing others’ opinions and generating respect. Besides that, acceptance is also inclusive of construction of patient’s strengths and recognizing the ability of each patient for transformation to overcome problems.Professionalism in Healthcare Sample