ETHICS SELF-ASSESSMENT 2

Ethics Self-Assessment

Ethics in healthcare play an important role in promoting integrity, quality care for all
patients, and reducing cases of ethical dilemmas. After conducting the ethics self-assessment I
noticed that I am strong in most of the areas that were assessed. There were, however, a few
areas that I discovered I am weak at with regards to ethics.
Areas that I am ethically strong
An area that I am particularly strong at is honesty. There are many instances in which I
get tempted to be dishonest. For instance, when I make a mistake sometimes I get tempted not to
report or acknowledge it. Sometimes I also feel like lying in order to protect my colleagues or
even patients. Luckily, I never fall into such temptations. I always state the facts as they are even
if they are unpopular.
I am also have a lot of respect for my colleagues. Any time I have a problem I consult
them and respectfully listen to what they have to say. Thanks to the respect I accord my
colleagues, I have managed to forge very fruitful and supportive work relationship with them
which has greatly benefited the patients that we care for.
In addition to respect, I also have a strong sense of justice. I believe in treating patients
with fairness regardless of their racial, ethnic or socio-cultural backgrounds. When making
decisions on the care that a patient should receive, I do not consider their financial situation. I
just focus on what is good for them.

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Lastly, when making decisions I am driven by values alone. I do not consider personal
gain in any of the decisions that I make. Instead, my focus is purely on fulfilling the values of my
organization.
Areas that I am ethically weak
I identified two areas that I am ethically weak. The first one is difficulty in initiating and
promoting discussion of controversial issues that affect patient and community health. Another
one is difficulty in encouraging timely actions that serve the interests of patients when there are
practice variations in care.
In the first one, my problem stems from my desire not to engage in conversations that
cause discomfort among colleagues, patients and families of patients. However, given the
importance of such conversations I plan to conduct thorough research on the subjects and then
initiate conversations on them that respect opinions of everyone, are devoid of emotion and are
presented in a simple and logical manner (Butts & Rich, 2019). On the second issue I believe
that I can improve my future handling of such issues through completely focusing on what is
good for the patient at all times (Chadwick & Gallagher, 2016).
In improving these areas that I am not particularly strong at and in resolving professional
or personal ethical conflicts, there are sources that I can use. One of them is the ethics committee
of my organization. The committee is tasked with ensuring that staff conduct themselves in a
manner that adheres to ethical standards (Kangasmiemi et al., 2015). Another source of guidance
is the website of American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE). On the About section of
the website is Ethics Toolkit which provides guidance for ethical conduct in different situations.
Conclusion

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The importance of ethics in healthcare cannot be ignored. However, it is not easy to be
strong in all areas related to healthcare ethics. One may be strong in some areas and weak in
others. To be a professional guided by ethics in their work one needs to always seek
improvement in areas that they are weak at. In my self- assessment, I have not only identified my
strong areas but also my weak ones and how to improve them.

ETHICS SELF-ASSESSMENT 5

References

Butts, J. B., & Rich, K. L. (2019). Nursing ethics. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Chadwick, R., & Gallagher, A. (2016). Ethics and nursing practice. Macmillan International
Higher Education.
Kangasniemi, M., Pakkanen, P., & Korhonen, A. (2015). Professional ethics in nursing: an
integrative review. Journal of advanced nursing, 71(8), 1744-1757.