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Professional identity is essential in effective and safe clinical practice in the healthcare field. It is one of the key elements in the operations of interprofessional teams that lead to positive and negative effects in the contemporary healthcare environment (Matthews, Bialocerkowski & Molineux, 2019). Professional identity is a crucial mechanism that impacts the decision of selecting the careers and performance in the workplace that includes behaviours, attitudes and values not limited to the work settings. The concept behind personal identity is complicated since it comprises of different identities including managerial, social, personal, and professional identity, existing in modern healthcare organisations. Professional identity involves oneself to be perceived with respect to a profession and its membership. In the healthcare sector, professional identity is an important aspect in the regulation and operation of interprofessional teams (Joynes, 2018). Obstacles in effective and safe team practices in healthcare can occur due to conflicting power dynamics connected with different philosophies, cultures, status, educational requirements and different professional background. Positive and negative effects are bound to arise from different professional identities of the staff within the healthcare organisation. The essay will discuss three professional identities that are important in healthcare settings and how they aid in providing effective and safe patient care.
The phrases professional identity, or professionalism are often used in the medical field interchangeably and the concept might be confusing and cause misassumptions of what it really stands for. One should be careful regarding the meaning behind it before using the terms and more importantly understand their relation to clinical practices. Medical students and professionals are always lectured on the matter of professionalism and upholding professional identity; hence, it is critical for development of their professional values that they understand the definition of professionalism in others view and to them as well (Bridges, 2018). In precise professional identity can be defined as a person who does skilful work in order to achieve a useful goal; or in other terms, the essential characteristic possessed by a profession that propels its members’ dedication towards the organisation or service they provide (McDermott et al., 2019). The list of attributes that define professional identity are education, skills and knowledge, collaboration, scope of practice, continuing educational and professional development, codes of conduct, critical thinking, adaptability, integrity, accountability and empathy. Professional identity is a prerequisite attribute for healthcare professional within and beyond the healthcare setting (Goolsarran et al., 2018). Having a professional identity strengthens the values, behaviours and attitudes that are expected of the medical professionals.
Definition of Professional Identity (PI)
Modern healthcare organisations run on team effort and a typical scenario in the inpatient experience presents a cadre of allied healthcare professionals working side by side in order to deliver the best patient experience and quality care (Karam et al., 2018). According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) interprofessional collaboration is defined as different healthcare workers belonging to different professional backgrounds working with patients, caregivers, families and communities together in order to deliver the best quality care. The concept of interprofessional collaboration is not new and the Institute of Medicine in 1972 defined team-based care of patients as an effective method to improve safety and enhance patient outcomes (Thistlethwaite & Vlasses, 2021). The concept took a little while to propagate; however, in recent times collaboration in healthcare is a trending and visionary professional attribute. There are several benefits of professional collaboration including improving patient outcomes, minimising medical errors, providing faster treatments, reducing healthcare costs and inefficiencies, and enhancing staff relationships.
The concept of collaboration can be described by an example; when a person is brought to the emergency department (ED) with complaints of chest pains, an ED doctor is responsible to check him first, followed by some tests ordered by a cardiologist. The cardiologist then awaits the results, which are confirmed by a radiologist. The radiologist inspects the results and confirms the diagnosis by the doctors; which is the patient is suffering a cardiac arrest. The patient is then taken into surgery after which he spends 24 hours under observation in the ICU where he is cared for by nurses in shifts of 12-hours. The patient then gets transferred to the cardiac unit where he is taken care of by staff nurses. During the stay a primary care doctor checks him during rounds, followed by the cardiologist and if required other specialist doctors like pulmonologist and endocrinologist if he has comorbidities like COPD or diabetes. Depending on the lifestyle and recovery additional healthcare professionals like dieticians, physical therapist and social workers might get associated with in the process. Each professional has their own insights and perspectives regarding the patients; they observe different symptoms, consider various possibilities and together they can have a comprehensive and holistic care approach. Research has shown that collaboration in healthcare reduces mortality rates, decreases preventable reactions and aversions to drugs, and optimises dosage of medicines. Collaboration is an important attribute of the professional identity that helps bridge gaps and reduces errors in the medical field (Rosen et al., 2018). It makes the patient care teams stay connected in order to deliver a safe and effective patient outcome.
Collaboration
There are various laws and guidelines to mandate ethical behaviours; however, laws have no strength to compel a person to engage in or obey ethical conduct. Abiding by the law is an expectation of standard behaviours but in the healthcare sector public expectations and trust are extremely high and hence requires maintaining a high standard. A Code of Conduct or frequently known as the Code helps in achieving just that. The Code is fundamental to the compliance programme of every healthcare organisation, and is an important aspect of the organisation’s culture (Doherty, 2020). The Code of Conduct inspires every healthcare professional, doctor, nurse, technicians, vendors, contractors and other stakeholders to think of the consequences before acting or behaving in a certain manner in the work environment. It presents an organisational guidance comprising of compliance and ethical principles that steers the decision-making and functioning of the organisation (Magill & Prybil, 2020). The Code may vary from one organisation to another, but the typical Code of Conducts outlined for healthcare professionals are to provide cost-efficient, best quality and necessary care; to serve the community, to conduct professional actions with transparency and integrity, and to encourage ethical behaviours by acting on what is morally right and reporting wrongdoings.
Every challenging situation may not be addressed in the Code of Conduct but it serves as a point of reference when healthcare personnel find themselves in a situation of ethical dilemma. The Code of Conduct and ethical guidelines include patient-physician relationships, ethics or decision-making, communication and consent, ethics of confidentiality, privacy and medical records, ethics of End of Life and Patient care, ethics of reproductive medicine and genetics, ethics of transplantation and organ procurement, ethics for community health, ethics of healthcare delivery and professional self-regulation (Hübner, Egbert & Schulte, 2020). Ethics are an integral part of healthcare and ethical codes helps to shape and guide the moral environment and directs ethical responsibility for every healthcare professional (Doherty, 2020). It helps facilitate discussion around ethical dilemmas pertaining to sensitive and difficult cases, and ethical standpoints can be developed and argued providing better and secure moral outcomes. The Code defines ethical behaviour that should be maintained by healthcare professionals which is a valuable attribute of professional identity.
Empathy is the ability that an individual possess, to comprehend and share feelings and thoughts of another. It is one’s capacity to feel what another person is feeling or going through while sharing the emotions with them (Moudatsou et al., 2020). In a healthcare setting it is important to validate and recognise the patients’ anxiety, fear and pain. Empathy in a healthcare setting is the ability to recognise the feelings and worries of a patient to facilitate a better diagnosis and quality care. Empathising with patients is a sign of humanism in the field of healthcare and expressing empathy is one of the main factor in enhancing patient outcome and patient experience. Compassion and empathy has huge roles to play in patient experience and are essential components in a patient-physician relationship (Ratka, 2018). For instance, when an individual approaches a healthcare provider with severe illness, chronic condition or for a simple routine check-up, the individual will most commonly manifest emotions like fear, anxiety or apprehension. Patients often are apprehensive of the treatments and care, and require a confirmation that they are being given the best care. This confirmation can be conveyed through compassion and empathy.
Code of Conduct
Empathy expands beyond the patient’s medical condition, signs, symptoms and medical history. It encompasses an understanding that connects the mind, soul and body building trust and rapport with the healthcare team. It is effective in calming the patient, reducing their fears and anxiety, and enhancing health outcomes. Studies have shown that empathy and compassion are connected with decreased rates of malpractices, better adherence to treatments and medications, fewer medical errors, and increased patient outcome and patient satisfaction (Hannan et al., 2019). Empathy in healthcare is an important attribute in professional identity that increases humanism and maintains integrity. Physician empathy is an essential factor of patient satisfaction. Empathy can be achieved by great communication skills and efficient communication involves listening to the patient’s feelings and empathising with their emotions. For many years, holistic and person-centred care towards the healthcare user, along with empathy has been the principle values and ideals in education and medical practice. Empathy between medical professionals and patients considerably contributes to how well the both parties behave and to the patient’s overall wellbeing and adherence to therapy.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that professional identity or the values, attitudes, beliefs, knowledge and skills shared with other professionals within an industry or organisation is an important aspect of effective and safe patient care. Developing professional identity is a continuous process inspired by several factors such as professional socialisation and experiences within the field. It is a dynamic process that begins to evolve during the educational years and continues into the professional years. Collaboration, empathy and Code of Conduct are a few of the principle attributes of professional identity that helps to enhance patient outcomes and improve the quality of care. On the other hand, lack of clarity of professional identity is found to affect the profession’s perceived merit, and the practitioner’s credence in promoting their professional judgement. The effect professional identity has over healthcare practice has ensued an increase in attention in understanding the concept along with its development. Professional identity is a concept that health profession academics and investigators are fascinated by because of the influence it has on students’ future practise in the profession and the prospective issues that come with practicing in a health context.
Reference
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