Essay on "Personal Reflections in Healthcare Changes"

Essay 3 pages (951 words) Sources: 3

[EXCERPT] . . . .

S. (Kennedy, 2006; Reid, 2009).

By comparison, the government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, despite their deficiencies, operate at approximately one-tenth the administrative costs and absorb only approximately two or tree percent of total expenses administrated. The difference is all profit for the private healthcare industry (Kennedy, 2006; Reid, 2009) and that is obviously an unsustainable and inequitable system when as many as forty percent of Americans cannot afford health insurance and as many as 50,000 die every year from the consequences of treatable or manageable illness and disease (Kennedy, 2006; Reid, 2009).

Ethical Obligation to Patients, Family, Profession, Organization, Society, and Self

I have learned through my studies and practical experience that the ethical obligations of healthcare professionals extend far beyond the direct relationship with patients (Hamric, Spross, & Hanson, 2009). We must always consider the way that our delivery of care affects other stakeholders, including the families of patients, our fellow healthcare providers, our employers, and the entire American healthcare system. Many of the decisions we make have ripple effects that go beyond the immediately apparent consequences of our actions.

While many of us in this profession have a natural tendency to sacrifice for the welfare of others, I have also learned that sometimes that impulse can be detrimental to our well-being and to that of people in our lives, especially dependent family members. Our profession is often highly stressful and one of the inevitable consequences of vocational stress is lack of attention to detail and early career burnout. Therefore, in addition to our obvious responsibilities to our patients, we also have a responsibility to maintain our own health and welfare so that we can be as productive as possible in our chosen profession.

New Understandings about the Relationship between Legal and Ethical Guidelines

Finally, I have learned that our profession is highly regulated by various agencies and by legal concepts and principles that have far-reaching ramifications if they are not followed. It is not enough to comply with rules, regulations, and protocols only in the technical sense; we must make a genuine effort to comply in goof faith and to further the underlying purposes and interests of the regulations and protocols that govern our chosen profession (Beauchamp & Childress, 2009). In many respects, this concept also goes back to the complacency issue that I mentioned earlier because with complacency and routine comes opportunity for mistakes and negligence that can cost people their lives and jeopardize our careers, and the interests of our coworkers and employing organizations as well.

References

Beauchamp, T.L., and Childress, J.F. (2009). Principles of Biomedical Ethics 6th

Edition. Oxford University Press: UK.

Hamric, A.B., Spross, J.A., and Hanson, C.M. (2009). Advanced Practice Nursing: An

Integrative Approach. Saunders: St. Louis, MO.

Kennedy, E. (2006). America: Back on Track. Viking: New York.

Reid, T. (2009). The Healing of America: A… READ MORE

How to Reference "Personal Reflections in Healthcare Changes" Essay in a Bibliography

Related Essays:

Health Care Services for the Homeless Research Paper

Health Care Services for the Homeless

An Analysis of Health Care for the Homeless, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Today, one of the most significant problems facing underserved populations is an inability to… read more

Research Paper 10 pages (2754 words) Sources: 1+ Topic: Healthcare / Health / Obamacare

---

Ethical Issue of Poor People Not Receiving Same Care as Rich Term Paper

Spring Health Uninsured Share Policy Ethics

Scarcity ethics nursing

Imagine two possible extremes of either zero safety net at all, or every consumer receiving identical care regardless of ability to… read more

Term Paper 6 pages (2295 words) Sources: 5 Topic: Healthcare / Health / Obamacare

---

National Healthcare Systems Research Paper

National Healthcare Systems Decision-Making

Justification for the Research

Participants

Theory employed

Personal opinion

Means of Gathering Information

The National healthcare systems form one of the most important systems in the… read more

Research Paper 8 pages (2143 words) Sources: 16 Topic: Healthcare / Health / Obamacare

---

Managing Quality Safety and Risk in Health Care Systems Essay

Managing Quality, Safety, And Risk in Health Care Systems

Quality healthcare has been the subject of various political, humanitarian and academic debates. In this pare we present an analysis of… read more

Essay 10 pages (2671 words) Sources: 10 Topic: Healthcare / Health / Obamacare

---

Health Exploring the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Term Paper

Health

Exploring the Tuskegee Syphilis Study

The Tuskegee Study was intended to examine the long-term side effects of untreated syphilis. It tracked a group of 600 poor African-American men in… read more

Term Paper 8 pages (2669 words) Sources: 5 Topic: Healthcare / Health / Obamacare

---

View 100+ more related papers  >>