Darielle Connor
Reflective Essay
In this essay, I hope to lay a moral framework to build an important facet of my new career as a physician assistant. I will discuss why becoming a physician assistant is important to me, which parts of practice will be the most crucial, and which defined ethical principles I think will be the most supportive in how I make ethical decisions as a clinician.
I decided to become a physician assistant to have more of an impact on the lives of my patients. As an imaging technologist, I didn’t get to spend much time with each patient. I found that because of the busy worklist, patients were often treated with less care than they deserved. I also found that many of my colleagues forgot that our patients were actual human beings who deserved to be treated with the utmost dignity and care. These ethical quandaries were a catalyst in my decision to leave radiology so that I could pursue a career where I had the ability to work on humanizing the healthcare experience for my patients.
The aspects of practice that will be most important to me are those in which I can feel that I have empowered others. Also, in areas where I’ve made my patients feel helped, valued, and heard. I believe that will be during my time spent interviewing my patients. During that one-on-one time, I can serve to make them feel understood and make their concerns valid, which I think is just as important to a person’s well-being as actual medical treatment. Health literacy is a facet of healthcare that has only recently become an initiative. I hope that by making it an initiative for myself in my practice, I can improve the health literacy of my patients. Through educating them on their own unique conditions and treatment options, my patients will hopefully learn to make better decisions regarding their health and lead more enriching lives.
There are so many ethical principles that were discussed this semester, and they will all have an influence on my clinical practices. Specifically, I feel that Beneficence and Dignity will both play significant roles in how I make ethical decisions for my future patients. Beneficence in healthcare is the principle of producing good outcomes, reducing harm to a patient, and caring for their well-being (Yeo et al, 2010). Dignity is an important principle in healthcare as well. It is the treatment of others in a respectful manner that denotes worth and applies to both those patients with capacity and those without (RCN, 2008).
Beneficence and Dignity are the bread and butter of a moral framework in healthcare. From the very first notion, I was taught as a physician assistant student, these two principles have been integrated into every aspect of my education. Applying these principles to my practice will be second nature, even as a new clinician. I pursued a career as a p to benefit others, and so Beneficence will be integrated into most of my clinical habits. I want to make good outcomes happen for my patients and will use such techniques as “Motivational Interviewing”, which is interviewing a patient in a manner that motivates them to make a healthy change. I also want to protect my patients from any harm. This entails screening them for harmful activities such as drug use or smoking. Dignity is instinctual in healthcare (RCN, 2008), and I believe that using it in practice will also be instinctual. Treating my patients with respect and making them feel worthy of my effort will be the best way I can maintain that.
In conclusion, I will employ both Beneficence and Dignity as a framework for my ethical practices. They are integral principles to use in decision-making both in medicine and in everyday life and will provide support to my clinical skills. Working for years in a field where I wasn’t able to use my ethical skills to their full potential motivated me to seek a career where I could use these skills more effectively. My one-on-one time spent with my patients will be the most important to me as it’s where I feel that I can have the most positive effect. I hope that by keeping this moral frame in mind, I can be the best clinician possible and truly benefit and dignify the patients I see.
Works Cited:
- Yeo, Michael et al. (2010). Beneficence. In M Yeo et al. (eds.). Concepts and Cases in Nursing Ethics. [3rd edition] Ontario: Broadview Press, pp. 103-116.
- Royal College of Nursing. (2008). Defending Dignity–Challenges and Opportunities for Nursing . London: Royal College of Nursing.
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