Virtues and Vices of Healthcare Providers PDF

**Virtues of the Healthcare Provider** 1. **Fidelity** - Latin word "Fidelitas" which means faithfulness. Fidelity and faithfulness are synonymous terms. - Also means faithfulness and fidelity to one's obligations, duties, and responsibilities. - The healthcare provider is called...

**Virtues of the Healthcare Provider** 1. **Fidelity** - Latin word "Fidelitas" which means faithfulness. Fidelity and faithfulness are synonymous terms. - Also means faithfulness and fidelity to one's obligations, duties, and responsibilities. - The healthcare provider is called to exercise fidelity as he/she faithfulness does his/her obligations, duties and responsibilities. - In the nightingale pledge, the virtue of fidelity of the healthcare provider, especially the nurse's, to his/her profession means his/her unfailing fulfillment of his/her obligations, duties and responsibilities as are firmly emboldened in his/her vow to practice the craft and vocation of the healthcare profession. - In trying to apply this in the nursing profession, Helen Keller, all healthcare professionals to stick to fidelity as they serve the needs of their patients as such as is the very purpose why they became healthcare providers. Only with fidelity can healthcare professionals assert their worth as professionals in caring for the sick and the infirmed. 2. **Honesty** - Latin word "honestus" which means honor. - Literally, refers to people who are holding honorable or respectable position. - In this light, the healthcare provider is reminded to practice his/her profession itself as an sphere of honesty in as much as the healthcare profession itself is an honorable and a respectable career. It is itself an honor on the part of the nurse to take care of those who are relegated under his/her care. - The healthcare provider must pursue honesty. He/she is supposed to be sincere, truthful, straightforward, decent, honorable, creditable and of good moral character. - He/she should not cheat on his/her patients nor steal anything from them. When the healthcare practices honesty in his/her profession, the nursing profession reaps merit and glory since honesty is good for the wellness of the sick. - On the contrary, a healthcare provider who is liar will add more injury to the illness suffered by the patient. It can be said that truth has a curative value while lie is fatal and acidic. This explains why Jesus Christ aid that truth will set as free. - As the healthcare provider wrestles to be honest, he/she must be loyal to the patient. When it comes to giving information to the patients relative to the latter's diagnosis and prognosis, the nurse must strive hard to tell the truth in a way that is not disastrous to the patient. As the saying goes: "There are many ways of killing a dog." 3. **Integrity** - Integrity comes from Latin word *enteros* which means whole. It is integrity that can make human person whole or complete. An honest person is one who can distinctly discern the variance between right and wrong, or one whom is determined to act on a right decision. Integritas, meaning soundness, is another Latin word through which the term integrity can be traced. The word integritas is itself derived from another Latin word, integer, which means whole or complete. Based on the words enteros, integritas, and integer, integrity corresponds to wholeness. - Applied in the healthcare profession, when can a healthcare professional practice integrity? The healthcare provider practices integrity when he/she does his/her duties and obligations as a healthcare provider according to the beliefs, principles, and values he/she claims to embrace or cherish. Hence, a healthcare provider who practices integrity brushes away hypocrisy since he/she willfully adheres to the ethical code of the profession he/she is practicing. 4. **Humility** - As the nurse lives with fedility, honesty, and integrity, he/she is at the same time summoned to practice humility. Humility does not mean that one has to think less of himself/herself; rather, it invites one to think of himself/herself less. When one is drunk with all his/her capabilities, achievements, and success, he/she can hardly be humble. Only when one can readily restrain his/her proven talents, abilities, skills, and achievements, only then can one openly welcome humility. - Accordingly, G.K. Chesterton, once shared his views of the meaning of humility in Orthodoxy: "Humility was largely meant as the restraint upon the arrogance and infinity of the of the appetite" - Based on the above presentation, a humble healthcare provider is one who ceases to think of his/her own needs as he/she transcends his/her attention to the needs of the patients. He/she is attentive to the well-being and welfare of his/her patients. Only through humility can the healthcare provider stop to think more of himself/herself since he/she will start more of the wellness of his/her patients. 5. **Respect** - In many instances, respect is paired with fear, giving raise to questions like "are you afraid of the person that is why you respect him or do you have respect for the person that is why you are afraid of him?" - Which is better, to be feared or to be respected? On the part of the healthcare provider, being feared by the patients will be render useless the purpose of nursing. The healthcare provider must earn the respect of his/her patients for him/her to become a strong catalyst for the healing process of the patient. - Respect has a very modest and a bit feminine texture as it is understood as caring for and being concerned about the feelings of others. Respect can likewise be an act through which one takes notice of others. It also means to regard others with special attention, esteem, and care, or to consider others worthy of esteem and honor. These meanings of respect fit the profession of the healthcare provider who is tasked to care for the sick. In the absence of respect, illness will never be conquered as the spirit of care will be tainted by selfishness, arrogance, and malice. - It is not true, however, that only the nurses are duty-bound to pay respects to their patients. The patients, as well, are duty-bound to show respect to the healthcare providers. They can do this by being cooperative and diligent in their participation to the healing process. Respect may not be a cinch on the part of healthcare professionals especially if their patients are arrogant and unruly. But, just the same, the exercise of respect is intrinsically expected from the healthcare provider in line with his/her tour of duty. - It is very important for the healthcare provider to respect and acknowledge the feelings, beliefs, convictions, status, and condition of the patient in relation to the latter's disease and to his/her stature as a human being. 6. **Compassion** - Random House Webster's College Dictionary (2001) defines compassion as "a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for someone struck by misfortune, accompanied by a desire to alleviate the suffering." The same dictionary takes compassion as a merciful feeling. Compassion is another appropriate virtue for the nurse as he/she is expected to be sympathetic to the patient's distress and suffering. The healthcare provider is expected to be sensitive and to manifest genuine sorrow for the plight of the patient. He/she ought to show pity and commiseration as he/she witnesses the pain of the patient. As earlier presented, the patient is always presumed to be vulnerable and weak, which is why he/she needs the compassionate care of the healthcare provider. 7. **Prudence** - Prudence is one of the cardinal virtues according to St. Augustine. It is defined as an exercise of good judgement, common sense, and caution in the conduct of practical matters. Scholars consider discretion (wise self-restraint), foresight (ability to see the future or what may happen as a result of one's decision), forethought (advance rational calculation of future events), and circumspection (moral considerations as effects of one's actions). As can be seen, prudence is the overarching virtue that ties together discretion, foresight, forethought, and circumspection. - By being prudent, the healthcare provider exercise wisdom, discretion, and carefulness to avoid embarrassing and distressing situation as he/she fulfills his/her task in the tour of his/her duty. 8. **Courage** - Courage is one of the virtues thought by Aristotle. To this great Greek philosopher, courage in the mean (virtue) between confidence (excess) and fear (deficiency). Courage is as "the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, and pain without fear". It also means confidence, resolution, and conscious self-sacrifice for the sake of something greater than one's own self-sacrifice for the sake of something greater than one's own self-interest. - Courage is another appropriate virtue for the healthcare provider, especially in the hospital setting, as he/she is expected to be bold in undertaking a very sensitive job, i.e., to nurse the patient as the latter is engulfed by pain and suffering. Taking care of the sick requires self-sacrifice and dedication to effect a caring presence, attention, and a courageous commitment to render healthcare. - In the absence of courage, the healthcare provider will lose track of the vision and reason of his/her calling. He/she must not cringe amidst the tragic occurrences in a hospital, such as those that happen in the Operating Room, Delivery Room, Emergency Room, Intensive Coronary Care Unit, and Intensive Care Unit, among others. Courage keeps the healthcare provider poised in his/her profession. Courage also allows the healthcare provider to face the challenges and dangers of the healthcare profession head on. **Vices of the Healthcare Provider** 1. **Fraud** - False representation of fact, made with a knowledge of its falsehood, or recklessly, without belief in its truth, with the intention that is should be acted upon by complaining party and actually inducing him to act upon it. - It is also underrstood as a "deliberate deceit; trickery; an intentional perversion of truth for the purpose of inducing another in reliance upon it to part with some valuable thing belonging to him, or to surrender a legal right. - In another case, (Cajucom versus the Philippine Commercial and Industrial Bank) fraud is defined as that which "connotes serious willingness and deliberate intent on the part of erring party to do wrong or to cause damage to another" - In its general sense, fraud "is deemed to comprise anything calculated to concealment involving a breach of legal or equitable duty, trust or confidence justly reposed, resulting in damage to another" - The above meaning of fraud, although lifted from jurisprudence, reveal that it "implies a sense of wanton or deliberate wrongdoing". Applied in the healthcare profession , it becomes a grave offense on the nurse to deceive, trick or eventually harm the dignity and health of his/her patient. - Healthcare providers must understand that fraud is a criminal offense -- a crime against public interest. Article 185, 186, 187, 188 & 189 of the revised penal code of the Philippines readily provide the details of the corresponding penalties of fraud. - Can easily ensue when a healthcare provider or tampers the medical record of his patient or willfully changes some data in the latter's official record. 2. **Pride** - Theoretically, pride started in heaven; it is being continued here on earth. And hopefully, it will end in hell. In the classic catechetical inputs of the Catholic Church, we are told that Lucifer, who eventually became Satan, which designates not exactly a name but a title meaning deceiver, staged rebellion against God together with the daemons (Greek word which means angel). What Lucifer did made him the progenitor of one of the seven deadly sins according to the teachings of the Catholic Faith - Pride is defined as "feeling of gratification arising from association with something good or laudable" it also understood as "high or inordinate opinion of one's dignity, importance , merit, or superiority; conceit; arrogance" - Further, it is taken to mean "egoism or vanity which implies a favorable view of one's own appearance, advantages, achievement and often apply to offensive characteristics" - Pride leads one to desire and love greatly his/her own excellence. A person drunk with pride always thinks that he/she is always the best. To him/her, the rest are mere fragments or fractions of his/her achievements. - Proverbs 29:23 states that "a man's pride will bring him low, but he is lowly in spirit will obtain honor. - Pride is the root of all vice/sin and the strongest influence propelling us to sin. This led St. Gregory the great to opine: "pride, the sovereign of vices, when it is captured and vanguished by the heart, forthwith delivers it into the hands of its lieutenants, the seven capital vices, that they may despoil it and produce vices of all kinds. - A healthcare provider who is heavily laden with pride dishonors the healthcare profession. By its very nature, the healthcare profession calls for humility since the commodity offered is a humble service flavored by the virtues discussed beforehand in this book. Because of this, a healthcare provider must forget about his/her achievement and focus on how to help his/her patient come to terms with recovery or well-being. 3. **Greed** - Is an excessive desire to wealth or possessions. It's Latin equivalent is avaritia which means avarice or covetousness. The Catholic Church qualifies greed as a sin of excess, like lust and gluttony. To this form of vice, St. Thomas Aquinas remarked "it is a sin against God just as all mortal sins, in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of the temporal things. - Constructed in the nomenclature of avarice, greed is understood as an utter display of distasteful behaviors, such as betrayal, bribery, theft, violence and manipulation of authority. - In the healthcare profession, if a nurse is driven to greed. He/she will become disloyal to his/her patient, betraying the inherent trust mandated to him/her in the context of nurse-patient relationship. What is worse is that a greedy healthcare provider might steal or display violence against his/her patients. - In sum, the triumvirate of fraud, pride and greed are the vices that healthcare provider must willfully avoid. Otherwise, he/she will destroy the dignity and honor of the healthcare profession.