Professionalism not only includes your skills and knowledge but it also inculcates ones attitudes, behaviors and communication. It would not be wrong to say that a professional is known by his behavior and communication. In an organization where you professionally relate to your coworkers and also engage with people from general population professionalism becomes enormously significant. One such sector is the health sector. In hospitals Doctors, nurses, paramedics and support staff work as a team to provide care to the ailing and their families. Professional attitudes among different health care professionals make the team work better by building trust, respect and healthy learning environment. Professionalism also helps gain patients trust and increases compliances to treatment. It thus helps early recovery and discharge of patients. However unprofessionalism leads to distrust, disrespect and unhealthy attitudes which disrupt the team and thus negatively impact patient’shealth. Monrouxe etal, 2015 identifies thatLapses in professionalism in doctors appear to threaten patient safety and the provision of optimal patient care in SriLanka.
One such unprofessional behavior that nurses have to face in the public sector is they are being taunted, even verbally abused in front of the patients and attendants and that sadly from the doctors. This is very unprofessional in part of the doctors. The doctors must realize the fact that it not only disrupts the nurse-patient rapport and negatively impacts patient’s health; it even puts the nurse’s life in danger. The most vulnerable cadre of health professionals in the health care is nurses. Firstly, because most of them are females, secondly they lack the due image and respect in the society and finally, they do not have strong political associations. To understand it more clearly lets imagine a clinical situation. I have put doctors in the story only to make them realize the sensitivities of what we deal with every day. Imagine, a consultant does round in the morning and orders to insert NG Tube to a CVA patient. He asks a junior doctor to do it so that he can have hands on practice. The junior doctors assemble the equipment. Trembling with anxiety, his palms sweating profusely and his mouth drying down to his throat he picks up the NG Tube, measures it, lubricate with Xylocaine gel. He positions the patient, when he inserts the NG tube he feels resistance after 2-3 inches, he tries to push it down his throat and suddenly the patient starts bleeding. He pulls it back position the patient in side lying to prevent aspiration and leaves the unit saying he will call his senior. The senior fellow comes to the bed and the attendants tell the entire story to her. She saysohh that doctor has just come to the unit. He is a duffer and doesn’t do anything right, you should not have let him do the NG tube. He has done damage to his nasal conchae. When she assesses the patient he was still bleeding and the blanket was soaked with blood. She calls ENT and RRT on board and he was intubated and shifted to ICU. When his coagulation profile was done it was quite deranged. The nasal bleed was taken care of butin the evening the patient dies in ICU due to new and heavy brain hemorrhage. The very next day the young doctor was found shot dead near his house. Later on the police identified the suspect of the doctor’s murder to be the patient’s son.
Through this story one can identify the fact that it was not negligence of the junior doctor that killed the patient. It was a new large hemorrhage into the brain that killed the patient. However, the human error was that, the consultant ordered to do NG but did not order to do coagulation profile in the morning round and the nurse wasn’t bold enough to suggest. The second thing which went wrong was the communication of the senior fellow doctor with the attendants. She could have remained silent and look into the issue through other better ways. Her unprofessional communication with the attendants led to a brutal killing of a young doctor.
These kinds of incidences have occurred in the health care sector where nurses have been harassed, abused or killed; doctors have been physically harassed, disabled or killed due to the unprofessional approach of their seniors or fellow professionals. Protocols and procedures must be made and followed not only to prevent human errors but also to deal with them when they occur. Professionalism and communication skills must be taught at the medical and nursing colleges. But this will take time;for now we shall try to learn things by ourselves since we do not have continuous education and trainings on communication and professionalism in the public sector. The quick we learn the better we be. Else you can better imagine…
References
- M., H. M., R. C., & M. L. (2015). Lapses in professionalism in Sri Lankan doctors and their impact on patient outcomes. Sri Lankan Medical Association
Syed Sohail Nasir
Press Secretary, Chitral Nursing Association
District Chitral, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
