e-Portfolio – Essential VIII: Professionalism and professional values

e-Portfolio – Essential VIII: Professionalism and professional values

Essential VIII basically talk about professionalism and professional values, and by that we can see on one hand the code of conduct, which generally prescribes standards of conduct, states principles expressing responsibilities, and defines the rules expressing duties of professionals to whom they apply (Pozgar, 2016). On the other hand, we see professionalism as foundational of the practice of nursing, which is the demonstration of core values evidenced by nurses working with other professionals to achieve optimal health and wellness outcomes in patients, families, and communities by wisely applying principles of altruism, excellence, caring, ethics, respect, communication, and accountability (AACN, p.26). Either way when we look at professionalism or, and professional values, we see that it raises the problem of ethics which is the branch of philosophy that seeks to understand the nature, purposes, justification, and founding principles of moral rules and the systems they comprise (Pozgar, 2016). The AACN essential VIII highlights the responsibilities of practicing nursing, and the engagement of continuing learning to keep up evidence base practice.

Exemplar

The hot topic assignment consists in examining a contemporary issue pertinent to nursing ethics. My topic was “freedom to choose alternative treatment (medically viable or not). This topic brings up a lot of ethical component, and we need to understand the professional value in nursing practice in order to resolve an issue like this without bias. Essential VIII talks of about altruism, autonomy, human dignity, integrity, and social justice as demonstrating ethical behavior in patient care (AACN, p. 27). This assignment required you to have master not only Essential VIII, but also the chapter on ethics. It was a very passionate topic for me because as a nurse, we have to advocate for our patients, we have to respect them, treat them with dignity, to help them deal with their disease, and maintain patient center as one of the key component.

Reflection

The Hot Topic is related to Essential VIII in the fact that the component of professionalism and professional values helped me elaborate on the topic with rationalization and consideration. When we look at what Essential VIII is about, we will see that is basically about what we should or shouldn’t do as professional nurses. The spirit of The Hot Topic was how valuable patient opinion matters. How we as a healthcare professional should do everything in our power to keep our patient autonomy. The connection here is visible, because Essential VIII gives us the code of conduct. My Topic was about patients’ freedom to say no to pills or surgery, and choose a treatment that they think is good for them. As a healthcare professional, we should always carry empathy with us when we are taking care of those patients, we should try to feel their pain, because nobody comes to the hospital for fun. They are there because they are hopeless and they need our help. One of the Essential VIII component that I used for my Hot Topic was patient autonomy, which is characterize when nurse respects patients’ right to make decision about their health care (AACN, p.27).  I also talk about respecting the patient religion for instance a Jehovah witness patient, refusing to have blood transfusion even if the disease will kill him. In case like this as health care providers, we have to use our integrity which act in accordance with an appropriate code of ethics and accept standards of practice; defining honesty and providing care based on an ethical framework that is accepted within the profession (AACN, p. 27) to better serve our patients.

References

Pozgar, G.D. (2016).  Legal and ethical issues for health professionals (4th ed.).   Sudbury, MA: J ones and Bartlett.

American Association of colleges of Nursing (2008). Essential VIII: Professionalism and

professional values, The essentials of Baccalaureate Education for professional Nursing Practice.