Ethics define the way individuals do the things they do. Ethics in professions refer to the rules by which the individuals in that profession are supposed to comply with in their practice. Most professionals that involve have a set of rules that are a formal system that govern the way concerned professionals should do their work (Beckett & Maynard, 2005). Ethics exist so as to prevent the professionals from using their profession to hurt or exploit the individuals they are attending to. Examples of fields that have ethics are teaching, law medicine amongst several others.
Being unethical implies that one is not professional as they are not following what their discipline expects of them. Ethics do not stand alone in governing the way professionals go about their work, principles must be involved (Beckett & Maynard, 2005). Principles determine whether or not a professional will ethically (Koehn, 1999). Another aspect of ethics is responsibility. One has to understand the consequences of their actions before they act. This is in spite of one’s principles. Ethics go hand in hand with values which refer to the rules one uses in deciding between wrong or bad and right/good (Beckett & Maynard, 2005).
Values are what make individuals do or not do certain things. An individual is able to determine on what is useful hence more important and what is not of important using their values. Ethics also depend on morals which define good or bad. Ethics alone can therefore not assure that professionals will act in a responsible way (Koehn, 1999). After all, they are just rules and rules are always broken. Values and morals guide ethics. A professional uses his values to decide whether to follow the ethics or nit. Not all values are ‘good’ however; an individual’s values could lead him to act in a way that others around him find wrong.
This is where morals come in as they differentiate we hat is considered wrong from what is right universally. Values and morals hence guide professionals to be ethical (Koehn, 1999). The two enable one to do what is right according to themselves and in accordance with the society’s norms and expectations. Ethics are very important in the field of medicine. Medical professionals have a very sensitive responsibility which is to take care of human life. Life is considered sacred by all communities worldwide hence the need to protect it.
The most basic medicine principal is ‘does no harm’. This principle basically guides the responsibility of the professionals ensuring that they do not hurt the patients that are under their care. Cases have been told of practitioners using their profession to kill patients. Some have been able to go Scot free as it was hared to prove them guilty because of the nature of the profession. Ethical practitioners can not do that as ethics and their values would not allow it. Without ethics, one can take advantage of their profession and cause harm to patients (201 KAR 29:020, 2009).
Ethics are very significant in respiratory care which involves the evaluation and treatment of patients with breathing complications. Respiratory care involves physicians and therapists. The physicians monitor the patients and prescribe the medication and therapies required. Therapists work as instructed by the physicians and take care of the patients ensuring that they take the medication as prescribed and help the patients do the breathing therapies in the right way. Respiratory therapists also help in the event emergencies occur that are respiratory related such as drowning, heart failure and the rare cases of life-support treatment.
(Mappes & DeGrazia, 1999). Respiratory therapists have the responsibility of taking operating the equipment that provides oxygen and other medicine to the patients. The set up and monitor these devices that are used to treat patients with breathing disorders. These therapists have the task of administering the breathing therapies to patients. They teach and assist the patients with the breathing exercises. These therapists are also in charge of the patients’ records as they monitor their progress. Respiratory care as a field of medicine has its ethics that the respiratory physicians and therapists must conform to in their practice.
Any practitioner found not conforming to the ethics is said to be unprofessional in their conduct and are liable to punishment which could be as serious as being stripped off their membership and license of practice (Reamer, 2006). Ethics in this case refer to the code of conducts that the professionals must adhere to. Some of the ethics that govern the practice of respiratory include the respiratory professionals striving to increase their skills and knowledge so that they can render their patients the full and best measure of their ability (201 KAR 29:020, 2009).
This code of ethics ensures that the patients get the best from the respiratory physicians; it puts their lives in safer hands as the practitioners will do their best to heal or improve their conditions. The practitioners are also expected to treat their patients with respect and uphold the patient’s dignity without discrimination that is based on race, religion, gender, social and economic conditions of the patient.
The practitioners are expected to provide their services with competence and expose other members in the profession who display incompetence, perform illegal practices and are display misconduct such that they are complying with the profession’s ethics. (201 KAR 29:020, 2009). Respiratory physicians are also expected to strictly maintain the confidentiality and privacy of their patients with regard to any inquiries about the patient’s health and personal life. The practitioners have to maintain the dignity of the profession and uphold its honour by abiding to the ethical principles provided by the profession.
Practitioners have to familiarize themselves with the land’s law that govern the practice and perform accordingly without violating them (The United States Dpt… , 2006). They are expected to cooperate with other professionals in the field and take part in activities that help improve and promote the heath needs of the society. Respiratory practitioners are said to be unethical hence unprofessional when the above rules are not complied with. It can be observed that the above ethics function to improve the quality of the health care given to patients.
These ethics regulate the way the practitioners do their work ensuring that they not only go against the profession’s ethics but they also comply with the state and federal laws so that no criminal activities are done in the name of the practice (201 KAR 29:020, 2009). This ethics help prevent incidents such as the one that is referred to as the ‘angle of death’ which involved a respiratory therapist that murdered his patients. This was a violation of both the profession’s ethics and the laws of the united states in which murder is one of the offences that carry the most serious convictions of up to life or death sentence.
The respiratory care profession does not allow the respiratory therapists and physicians to commit practices that are false, unfair and misleading. This code of ethics protects the lives of patients as the practitioners who comply with it can not do anything intentionally to harm the patients and their lives and provide misleading information to the family and authorities. This help prevent cases such as the one commissioned above of therapists killing their patients. The practitioners are not allowed practice respiratory care under the influence of alcohol or drugs that the normal functioning of the mind (The United States Dpt…
, 2006). Therapists are expected to be able to hear, listen and observe the responses of their patients while administering the therapies; they can not effectively do this when intoxicated hence the purpose of the ethic. Therapists are also not expected to take advantage of the patients and perform any immoral act during the respiratory care therapies. There are several other codes of ethics that govern the respiratory care practitioners conduct which all aim at protecting the patients as they are the possible victims whose life is endangered by any misconduct or error on the practitioner’s part.
As discussed earlier on the duties and responsibilities of respiratory therapists, we note that respiratory care involves putting a patient with breathing disorders entirely into the hands of a professional who is being trusted on the basis that they have morals, principles and good values, and that they can comply with the profession’s ethics and the law. Respiratory physicians and therapists are hence left with the responsibility to decide on what they think is right and good for the patient (Mappes & DeGrazia, 1999). Ethics hence becomes a very important issue here.
This is because, any mistake made, whether intentional or not will have adverse effects on the patient. A small error could be fatal and cause death of patient. This field of medicine is also very sensitive as such patients are very delegate hence very prone to death in the event mistakes are made. Cases have been reported of individuals using respiratory physicians and therapists to kill people and blame the death on heart failure even when the victims had no previous records of having respiratory or heart problems (Mappes & DeGrazia, 1999).
Crimes caused by medicine practitioners are usually very hard to prove in courts of law. This is because the physicians are the ones who have the responsibility of prescribing any exercise or medicine they feel is right for the patient, they monitor and evaluate the patient’s response and progress. Death of these patients can only be attributed to complications in breathing which is not easy to prove induced when there is no witness. Ethics therefore are very important in respiratory care.
The practitioners who choose to be ethical do so because of their values which can not allow them to do what they perceive to be wrong (Reamer, 2006). Ethics protect the patients’ health and lives and ensure that the practitioners continue practising legally without any problems from the law or the board that regulates their practice. The patients’ lives and the practitioners’ profession are therefore dependent on ethics.
References
Beckett, C. & Maynard, A. (2005). Values & Ethics in Social Work: An Introduction.New York, NY: SAGE. Koehn, D. (1999). The Ground of Professional Ethics. New York, NY: Routledge. Mappes, A. & DeGrazia, D. (1999). Biomedical Ethics. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Reamer, G. F. (2006). Social Work Values and Ethics New York, NY: Columbia University Press The United States Department of Labor. (2006). Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2006-2007. New York. NY: McGraw-Hill Professional. 201 KAR 29:020. (2009). Code of Ethics; Unprofessional Conduct. Derived 8th May 2009 from <http://www. lrc. ky. gov/kar/201/029/020. htm>.