Ethics and Professionalism (Essay Sample)

Ethics and Professionalism
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Although some might be tempted to use professionalism and ethics interchangeably there is a great difference between the two terms. These terms are commonly used in health care services to refer to the conduct of health care employees and employers. Maintaining ethical codes is one of the ways of being professional. The following are the differences between ethics and professionalism; First, ethics refers to guidelines that are concerned with individual conduct as being right or wrong while professionalism refers to specified characteristics that are key and essential to a certain profession such as health care workers (Monrouxe et al, 2017). In other words, ethics is concerned with what an individual ought to do and what they should not do and they are imposed on all health workers. For example, all health workers are required to keep their patients’ medical reports confidential. Professionalism on the other hand entails the skills, conduct and competence that an individual portrays while they are practicing their profession. An example of being professional is being polite, honest and punctual while dealing with your clients. Secondly, professionalism is cultivated and nurtured by an individual himself whereas ethics is always started and it is a requirement. For instance, health workers have to follow a certain standard procedure while conducting an operation for them to be ethical whereas an individual learns to treat their clients with honor depending on the way they were brought up.
Healthcare leaders have a role to play when it comes to promoting ethical values and cultivating professional values in their facilities. To promote these values, leaders can do the following; Leaders can promote the development and implementation of ethical standards of behaviors by promoting clinical ethics, research, and investing in quality improvement practices in their facilities (McGinnis et al, 2002). Leaders can also ensure management commitment to ethical standards by setting up an ethics committee to clarify standards when employees find themselves in a comprising situation. Health care leaders can also promote ethics and professionalism by ensuring that employees are constantly trained on ethical standards and professionalism at their working place. Ethics and professional standards can also be promoted by recognizing employees that are ethical and rewarding them thus reinforces adherence to ethical standards. Furthermore, leaders can promote ethics and professionalism by creating an environment in which employees are free to express their ethical concerns in the institutions that they are working.
Leadership behaviors are key in implementing ethical standards in any workplace. Key leadership behavior such as leadership by example can be effective in ensuring that ethical and professionalism are implemented at the workplace. When leaders act as role models they influence their subordinates to emulate them (B