The Calling of the Healthcare Provider PDF

## The Calling of the Healthcare Provider ### THE HEALTHCARE PROFESSION The healthcare profession is one that belongs to the ambiance of professional ethics. It is not, therefore, identified with morality as such. "A code of morals is more universal and fundamental than a code of professional ethi...

## The Calling of the Healthcare Provider ### THE HEALTHCARE PROFESSION The healthcare profession is one that belongs to the ambiance of professional ethics. It is not, therefore, identified with morality as such. "A code of morals is more universal and fundamental than a code of professional ethics (http://www.jstor.org/pss/3412769. accessed September 9, 2008). Morality deals with what is right or wrong for the person as an individual. On the contrary, professional ethics pertains to what is right or wrong for a person as a member of a certain professional or social group like as a nurse, a physician, a lawyer, an accountant, a law enforcer, a jurist, a cleric, and the like. In this regard, the norms that healthcare professionals are required to obey and respect are those that regulate their actuations, decisions, and responsibilities in the context of health. For purposes of this book, nurses are given more attention with regards to their tasks, duties, and responsibilities as healthcare professionals. As earlier presented, the healthcare profession is well represented by physicians, nurses, medical technologists, dieticians, medical laboratory technicians, as well as sociologists, historians, politicians, scientists, philosophers, lawyers, economists, theologians, psychologists, and anthropologists. This kind of profession is loaded with a lot of sensitivities and vulnerabilities since it deals with the highest form of value, i.e., life. Although it may not sound nice, it is true that the price of living is more expensive than the price of dying. But just the same, the healthcare profession carefully and sympathetically calls to respect both the issues of life and death. The living human person becomes a concern of healthcare professionals in the context of health maintenance. As a person becomes ill or suffers from a certain disease, healthcare professionals, especially the nurse, are called to abide by a lot of norms, principles, theories, and values that should be upheld and respected with the aid of certain acceptable guides to help them come to terms with the better, if not the best, decision relative to healthcare giving. ### THE CLIENT The client (whether in the hospital or community) is the summit of the meaning of the healthcare profession. He/She justifies the quiddity of the healthcare professional. Arguing from the auspices of binaries, without the client, the healthcare provider will lose the very essence of his/her profession. Every human being who becomes ill is somebody whom any healthcare provider is morally obligated to care for. This means that the healthcare profession cuts across race, religion, affiliations, culture, beliefs, and the like. The healthcare provider does not have the legal, moral, or even intrinsic right to choose the kind of client he/she will take care of. The client, who is presumed to be vulnerable, i.e., if we are talking of the hospital setting, is someone the healthcare provider has to address all of his/her capabilities, skills, and professionalism to. Only then can he/she offer humane assistance to his/her patient. It is morality, or established rules of professional ethics, i.e., nursing ethics, that regulates the relationship between the nurse or any other healthcare provider, and the client. The client is the paramount concern and responsibility of the healthcare provider in the same manner that the former must also be cooperative, abiding, and respectful to the latter. ### THE HEALTHCARE PROVIDER The healthcare provider, especially the nurse, is no ordinary professional whose duties and obligations can just be accomplished by mere compliance of those that he/she is expected or required to do, like a mechanic, a carpenter, an engineer, a lawyer, among others. As explained earlier, the paramount obligation of the nurse is the life of the client. Hence, the healthcare or profession is a very delicate undertaking inasmuch as it deals with human life per se. In this breath, the nurse must be imbued with virtues for him/her to come to terms with all his/her duties and responsibilities. To recall, the Romans translated the term man as vir, which in turn yielded to the term virtue. In this case, virtue then can be construed as an act which is fitting or proper to man (Babor, The Human Person, 2007: 33). In this book, the following virtues are discussed in the context of the healthcare profession: fidelity, honesty, integrity, humility, respect, compassion, prudence, and courage. These are certain qualities that fit and are deemed proper to the healthcare profession.