Ethics

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Ethics Professionalism

• Perspectives For New Respiratory Care Students

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Ethics

• Philosophy
• Philo love of
• Sophia wisdom

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• Ethics is a branch of the love of wisdom
• Wisdom a systematic, thoughtful, reasoned, and
  sustained look at
• beauty aesthetics
• existence ontology
• knowing epistemology
• right thing to do ethics

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• The right thing to do
• Mainly Western thinkers, like
• John Mills
• utilitarianism
• Immanuel Kant
• Non-utilitarian, absolute, universal principles

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Health Care or Medical Ethics

• Relatively new in the broader field of Philosophy
• Is more applied, less theoretical
• Began with questions regarding
• Death (breathing? Heart? Brain activity?)
• Technological advances, in neonatology, open
  heart surgery, the ICU

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Strategies

• A competent patient (beware of definition)
• capacitated vs incapacitated
• Informed consent
• Remember--it is a process, not a signed paper
• Advance directives
• Living will
• Durable power of attorney for health
• Best judgment cases

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• Best judgment decision making
• Children not competent now, but will become
  competent
• Mentally retarded not competent now, and will
  never be competent

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Ethics and Professionalism

• How should we act?
• Individually?
• Professionally?
• Where do we look?
• The Law?
• Code of Ethics
• Protocol manuals, lawyers judgment?

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Why the Dilemma?

• Because
• We are individuals
• We enter Respiratory Care with our own
  experiences, needs, values, expectations, and
  aspirations

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Professional

• The challenge of becoming a respiratory care
  professional is
• Accepting and participating in a common
  (collective) behaviors
• A common set of values and actions
• These establish group identity that is recognized
  by others

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Professionalprofess

• To affirm, avow
• What makes a professional?
• On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being most
  professional, rank
• Postal worker, teacher, car mechanic, computer
  sales person, physician, lawyer
• Mastery of set of knowledge and skills that sets
  one apart from others

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• With specialized knowledge and skills, society
  grants privileges and autonomy (self-govern) to
  individual and to the group
• You are expected to self-regulate and police
  yourselves
• Another word for this is accountability

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Other Expectations

• Established standards of practice
• Ensure maintenance of knowledge and skills
  through continuing education
• Research and publish
• License
• Codes of ethics
• Codes of behavior

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Professional Ethics

• Common/collective behavior about the right thing
  to do
• No room for individual (personal) values
• Commitment is to the group-the collective
  behavior and common response to ethical
  situations
• Commitment to each other first

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Collective

• Failure of one individual to meet expectations of
  professionalism results in the condemnation of
  the entire profession
• Now, on to the case of the Jehovahs Witness and
  blood transfusion. . .