HCM4004 Supporting Dignity and Respect Through Ethical Principles Assignment

Introduction - HCM4004 Supporting Dignity and Respect Through Ethical Principles Assignment

In the healthcare industry, both ethics and morals guide the work of professionals. These considerations are significant components of offering health care which helps ensuring healthcare professionals to treat patients with respect and dignity (Cerit et al, 2021). Ethics and moral’s assist in promoting the confidence and trust in the healthcare system which ensures healthcare professionals to act in the best interest of patients. As a healthcare professional, I am dedicated to upholding the ethical decision-making to enhance the patients’ results. By using Gibbs reflective model, this essay will emphasize on my interpersonal skills which seems significant for maintaining and creating the meaningful personal connections at the workplace. With my efficient interpersonal skills, I can build healthy relations with staff and patients.

This essay will explore ethical and moral principles which are related to the health and social care by examining my personal values. The four main principles of ethics are autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence as well as justice.

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Main body

Ethics and Morals

The term ethics refers to the concept of moral right or wrong in the professional conduct (Principles of Healthcare Ethics, 2024). On the other hand, moral refers to the personal principles and beliefs which guide the people’s behaviour as well as decision-making. Ethics and morals in healthcare provides professionals with the deeper insight about healthcare and how to work ethically within the industry. Ethical principles offer guidance for the healthcare workers in protecting the rights of the patients by supporting the ethical culture for health, safety and wellbeing. These considerations are significant for offering healthcare services to the patients with respect and dignity. Ethics assist in promoting trust and confidence in the healthcare environment, which ensures that the care professionals act in the patient's interests. Adhering to ethics within the healthcare supports the patients’ outcomes, raise trust as well as confidence.

The core ethical principles include beneficence, autonomy, Nonmaleficence and justice. Beneficence signifies the healthcare workers act responsibly in the patient's best interests (Lindwall and Lohne, 2021). This principle entails enhancing the patients' health such as offering treatment to avoid injury, relieving pain as well as promoting health. I need to assess each course of action for possible harms and benefits which best serve the patient. I need to learn about considering each patient's individual needs, goals as well as experience. By efficiently engaging patients in care, I can enhance their health outcomes, enhance satisfaction in care experience as well as reduce costs.

Nonmaleficence signifies healthcare professionals should not harm the patients. They need to consider the actions which might impact patients (Principles of Healthcare Ethics, 2024). This principle obligates healthcare professionals to be mindful of their actions and refrain from decisions which might harm others. Non-maleficence needs me to avoid the causing harm to the patients. As a healthcare professional, I need to adopt the provision of safe, efficient as well as high quality care.

Autonomy is a practice which acknowledges the patient's right to exercise control regarding their treatment. Patient autonomy facilitates me to educate the patient which allows me to make decisions for them. Autonomy also needs informed consent which includes communication among the patients as well as healthcare providers which leads to agreement for the treatment, care and services. This also ensures that I need to offer patients with information regarding their medical concerns and treatment alternatives.

These four ethical principles serve as a basic justification for the range of ethical prescriptions as well as evaluation of the human actions. This assists healthcare professionals in making decisions which are consistent with improving decision-making across the organization. Justice means that the patients cannot be provided with low-quality care and discriminated on the basis of class, gender identity and access to care. Healthcare professionals need to gauge the severity of patients' situations to determine the order in which everyone receives care (Combrinck et al, 2022). Patients need to be treated equally and not on the basis of special treatment regarding personal relations and considerations.

Freedom, Rights, Responsibilities and Power in Health and Care

Freedom of choice in healthcare is a major principle which ensures that people have the right to make decisions regarding their health. The right to health is timely and appropriate healthcare along with the underlying determinants of health like access to water, sanitation and environmental conditions. Acting with the goodwill towards the patient seeks to preserve the patients’ autonomy and life (Hnedy, 2022). Power is offering whole-person-centred care for health needs in the lifespan. For instance, patients’ rights to refuse care are the basis of ethical principles within health and social care. This focuses on the person’s rights to make informed decisions regarding their health and impose their own decisions.

An adult patient who is not suffering from any mental incapacity has the right to choose the consent to medical treatment or refuse it. Patients have the right to get information as well as ask questions regarding their recommended treatments so they can make the informed decisions regarding their care (Franco et al, 2021). As a healthcare professional, I need to assess the patient's ability to understand the specific medical information as well as the implications of treatment alternatives in making voluntary decisions. I will efficiently communicate with the patients and care professional relations to promote support and trust in shared decision-making.

Ethical Theory

Deontology is an ethical theory which utilizes the rules to distinguish the right or wrong. The deontological strategy in the healthcare ethics provides a principles basis for me to handle the intricate ethical challenges. This gives priority to the moral obligations and duties, which safeguard the rights as well as the health of the patients while protecting their dignity and autonomy. This is a duty-based approach of decision making which is framed as the fundamental of ethical principles. These principles highlight particular ethical responsibilities like the duty of trustfulness in providing care.

Respecting the principles of autonomy obligates healthcare professionals to disclose medical information as well as treatment options (Perin and De Panfilis, 2021). These are required for the patients to exercise self-determination as well as support the informed consent along with maintaining confidentiality. Healthcare professionals need to carefully balance the respect for autonomy with the responsibility to protect the patient who might lack the ability to make informed decisions. However, striking the right balance between offering particular information for informed consent as well as avoiding patients with complicated medical details is challenging. I need to ensure that patients have specific information concerning making decisions while considering emotional ability as well as well-being to comprehend the complicated medical data. I also need to navigate the cultural beliefs while respecting the patients' values and cultural sensitivity which ensures their health and well-being. For me, Balancing the principles of patient autonomy is ethically challenging which needs careful consideration of the major advantages as well as harms of different course of actions.

End-of-life decisions include complexity in ethical challenges like analyzing the specific level of the patients' autonomy in life-sustaining treatments. However, I need to navigate these dilemmas while upholding the principles of patient autonomy as well as ensuring sympathetic care (Viftrup et al., 2021). I also need to balance individual autonomy with the deliberation of distributive justice as well as fair allocation of resources.

Personally held values

Empathy is a key in relation to creating respect and trust for others. Being a healthcare professional, I focus on compassion at work, which promotes healthy interpersonal relations. By treating with compassion I will able to be direct support and care to each patients. By applying Gibbs reflective cycle, I have evaluated my own experiences and values. I demonstrated genuine concern for the emotional as well as physical health of the patients. Further, focus tends to be placed on offering more efficient and patient-focused care which meets the needs of the patients. However, I was biased for patients because of their backgrounds which led to patients receiving poor treatment, experiencing delays as well as receiving inaccurate diagnoses (Schmidt et al, 2020). This biasness has led to harm my decision making ability in providing quality care to each patients. On the other hand, by appreciating my biases I reduce errors as well as enhance the patient’s safety. This is crucial to handle and acknowledge these biases which ensure quality as well as equitable care for all the patients despite of their backgrounds. I have taken part in ongoing training on cultural sensitivity as well as cross cultural communication which has helped me to overcome my biases.

Health organization has promoted self-awareness with the implicit bias training which contributed in my recognition as well as understanding the unconscious bias. Building a diverse team as well as promoting the inclusive culture within my organization has helped in reducing the implicit bias. I have used implicit association test (IAT) measures which have strengthened my application of concepts as well as evaluation of the stereotypes in revealing my subconscious bias.

On the basis of Gibbs model, I have worked together with the diverse staff which leads more inclusive approach to the patient care. Online implicit bias training is an efficient way which educates me in handling the unconscious biases. Person-centered care includes active listening to patients which considers their preferences and values by treating each patient with kindness.

Compassion, dignity and respect

Compassionate care handles the patient’s psychological and emotional requirements. The patients have a natural desire for human connection as well as relationships with rising empathy, which is combined with efficient intervention to alleviate that suffering. Care with dignity supports people’s self-respect, which is significant for the patient's health as well as mental well-being (Solberg and Nåden, 2020). In year 2020, 85 percent of patients felt they were always treated with dignity and respect while they were in hospital (Patient experience, 2024) . This allows healthcare professionals to create efficient relationships with patients. This also offers patients with the sense of autonomy, independence as well as control of their own life. Treating the patients with the respect as well as dignity is crucial in Regulation 10 of the health and Social Care Act 2017 (Hnedy, 2022).

I focus on creating a comfortable as well as supportive environment which assists in helping patients to be supported and feel valued in their everyday tasks, as well as promoting security. This is significant to continuously strive to offer people privacy, space as well as independence. As a healthcare professional, I need to promote the dignity as each conversation has a major influence on the patients' sense of identity as well as self-esteem. Dignity is personal care, including acknowledging patients' abilities, avoiding actions which might undermine dignity as well and respecting the client-centred policy. I create a supportive and comfortable environment which helps patients being supported to feel valued as well as promotes security. I have built the better relationships with the patients which helps in promoting fairness as well as equality. This offer the patient with the sense of autonomy, independence as well as control in their own life.

Communication and Interpersonal Skills

When the patients are well-informed, they actively participate in the decision-making regarding their care. This can outcome in better treatments and reduce the risk of medical errors as well as fewer misunderstandings (Laaser and Bolton, 2022). I focus on patients' non-verbal cues and words, which show them respect for their perspectives, which enhances their trust as well as facilitates more open communication. By being alert to the patient’s nonverbal clues I will be able to probe a deep response. I will explore patients non-verbal cues in their facial expression as well as body posture.

I also respect their cultural nuances as well as health beliefs which differ from the conventional medical knowledge. I use patient-centered care techniques by implementing the cultural as well as social factors in their care plans. This includes understanding the cultural practice in the patients' communities which accept their health conditions. This includes understanding the cultural practice of my patients by understanding how culture influences the patients’ acceptance of their health conditions.

I always maintain professional boundaries which protect the privacy of the nurse-patient relationship. I also create clearly defined limits which allow me to focus on the patient care and also avoid the personal entanglement. Ethical considerations also need to be taken into the consideration when setting the professional boundaries. This ensures that the patients' dignity and respect are valued according with the professional code of conduct. Patient autonomy is a significant ethical consideration which refers to allowing patients to make informed decisions regarding their health without interference. As a healthcare professional, I respect patient’s rights to choose the treatment alternatives which are aligned with their lifestyle as well as values.

Learning and Reflection

During this reflection, I have gained deeper knowledge in relation to the health ethics which promote the consideration of the values in justifying and prioritizing the actions by the health professionals. This influences the health and well-being of the families, patients as well as communities. With the complete interest with limited resources, ethics offer a systematic resolution and analysis of the conflicts with evidence-based application. This includes respect for the beneficence, autonomy, justice as well as utility. Ethics assist in endorsing the confidence and trust which ensures that healthcare professionals act in the patients' interests. All the ethical principles benefit the patients which respect for their equitable and autonomous treatment.

The implicit association test (IAT) helped me in measuring the strengths of association among the evaluation as well as concepts to reveal the subconscious biases. To overcome biases, I focused on ways to reduce stress as well as enhance mindfulness like yoga, meditation as well as focused breathing. This test has helped me in managing my biases, track progress as well as change in my behavior.

Conclusion

In conclusion, using Gibbs model ethics in healthcare serves as a guide for me which forced to make informed decisions in patients' quality care. By being aware of the best medical practices as well as organizational policies, I can consider the consequences of actions and make choices in the context of ethical standards in health and social care. I need to practice with compassion and respect which emphasizes in dignity of every individual patient. I also need to prioritize the needs of the patients in each decision they take. I also need to take the accountability for the ethical principles and make responsible decisions related to patients care and safety.

References

Books and Journals

• Cerit, B., Çoşkun, S., Çalışkan, M.A. and Temelli, G., 2021. The relationship between nurses’ ethical sensitivity levels and their attitudes toward principles about die with dignity. Journal of religion and health, 60, pp.162-177.
• Combrinck, Y., Van Wyk, N.C. and Mogale, R.S., 2022. Preserving nurses’ professional dignity: Six evidence‐based strategies. International Nursing Review, 69(1), pp.106-113.
• Franco, H., Caldeira, S. and Nunes, L., 2021. Dignity in nursing: A synthesis review of concept analysis studies. Nursing ethics, 28(5), pp.734-749.
• Laaser, K. and Bolton, S., 2022. Absolute autonomy, respectful recognition and derived dignity: Towards a typology of meaningful work. International Journal of Management Reviews, 24(3), pp.373-393.
• Lindwall, L. and Lohne, V., 2021. Human dignity research in clinical practice–a systematic literature review. Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences, 35(4), pp.1038-1049.
• Perin, M. and De Panfilis, L., 2021. Among equity and dignity: an argument-based review of European ethical guidelines under COVID-19. BMC medical ethics, 22, pp.1-29.
• Schmidt, J., Niemeijer, A., Leget, C., Trappenburg, M. and Tonkens, E., 2020. The dignity circle: how to promote dignity in social work practice and policy?. European Journal of Social Work, 23(6), pp.945-957.
• Solberg, H. and Nåden, D., 2020. It is just that people treat you like a human being: The meaning of dignity for patients with substance use disorders. Journal of clinical nursing, 29(3-4), pp.480-491.
• Viftrup, D.T., Hvidt, N.C. and Prinds, C., 2021. Dignity in end‐of‐life care at hospice: An action research study. Scandinavian journal of caring sciences, 35(2), pp.420-429.

Author Bio

Rosa Evans   9 Years | MD

Hello, I am Rosa and I have an MD in medical studies. I have been working as a professional academic writer for more than 9 years. I have expertise in various fields of medical science so no topic from health studies is difficult for me to research about. I can assure your assignments will drafted with excellent knowledge of medical science.