top of page

 Call to Action

       

          One of the most exciting developments related to healthcare in the 21st century is the advent of personalized medicine. Through genome mapping, we can develop treatments specifically designed for individual patients that are not only less harmful, but also more effective. Personalized medicine shows great potential for more advanced cancer therapies and customized treatment plans that yield better prognoses. As the application of medicine has become more personalized, healthcare professionals’ relationships with their patients have become less personal. Many patients do not have a primary care physician, much less a medical professional who knows them by name or is somewhat familiar with their medical history. As the demand for healthcare grows, more and more patients are being seen daily. This can be attributed to making up for flat or declining reimbursements, as well as a larger influx of patients who received health care coverage from the Affordable Care Act. USA Today produced an article entitled "You're on the clock: Doctors rush patients out the door" that talks about the decreased time doctors spend with their patients. Healthcare professionals are challenged to provide personal patient care based on standard ethics values. Although it would represent a significant change to implement another step to the protocol of patient care, I propose that we provide training to healthcare professionals around the Columbia area about basic ethical principles to consider within the context of medicine in order to provide patient care that is more personal and objective.

 

          My experiences at Clark’s Termite & Pest Control have taught me about the relevance of interpersonal communications. Through working with technology, I have seen how effective new protocol can be in terms of boosting efficiency of a workplace. I have also witnessed the decrease in person to person interactions as people communicate through email before having a face-to-face conversation. Although my professional job experience was related to Information Technology, I examined how it was similar to patient care within my first insight “Be Compassionate”. The most recent technological development within the healthcare field would be electronic medical records, which have made practices run more smoothly but have also cut down on the personal interactions between healthcare professionals and patients. Instead of discussing medical history or symptoms, they are already transcribed onto the software platform. As I have become more personally invested in my job, I have come to realize that technology and interpersonal communications do not have to be mutually exclusive. Electronic health care records can cut down on time spent with patients doing clerical work while the saved time could be utilized by discussing treatment options and making a patient’s experience more personalized.

 

          In order to provide more personalized patient care with an emphasis on medical ethics, I believe that basic ethic principles should be taught to healthcare professionals as a means of continuing education. I came to realize the importance of the issue during the development of my first key insight. Through Medical Ethics, Philosophy 321, I learned about basic ethic principles such as the Principle of Utility or the Categorical Imperative. These theories led me to consider the idea of treating patients as family. Through more personal interactions with healthcare professionals, patients could become more autonomous decisions makers as they are more informed of their options. Healthcare providers would become more objective in their treatment options and less paternal as they would be obligated to be more forthcoming and discuss all options, whether they personally agree with them or not. My second key insight, “Immunity for Life”, taught me that challenging experiences teach you lessons that you can use for a lifetime. Within my plan to provide more personal patient care, I believe that learning about case studies would help to avoid ethically problematic situations in the future. Using examples of treatment practices that were unethical help to provide a sort of “immunity” against repeating the same mistakes in the future. My third key insight, “Leaving a Legacy is Attainable”, taught me that making realistic goals and staying persistent can create positive advancements within a community. As I participated in the establishment of a student organization and increasing membership within an existing organization, I gained valuable skills such as confidence and motivation to make a realistic plan and stick to it. These skills will help me within my goal of achieving more ethical patient care in that I will be able to attain my goals through staying organized, persistent and determined in the efficacy of my plan.

 

 

Leadership

Emphasizing Ethics in Medicine

Cover Photo of Rebecca Skloot's book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5f/The_Immortal_Life_Henrietta_Lacks_(cover).jpg

Main Campus of Lexington Medical Center

Source: http://www.lexmed.com/locations-directions/main-campus/

 Proposal

 

          The plan that I would like to implement includes a partnership with USC and Lexington Medical Center. I would first speak with ethics professors I have come in contact with and once I have formulated some important ethical theories that would be beneficial to implement into patient care, I will contact the ethics board for Lexington Medical Center and partner with them in order to implement my plan into action.

          A possible resistance to my plan to make the foundation of patient care more ethics-based would be the opinions of the patients themselves. Through decreased patient time with healthcare professionals, many patients think that doctors do not care about them personally. To first assess the pushback of patients, I will conduct a survey of patients in the Columbia area which would be emailed out to patients that are within Lexington Medical Center’s online patient database. This could be a potential challenge since their information is protected by the hospital. I plan to partner with a patient relations representative and explain how understanding what patients are thinking can help to improve patient morale and their overall view of Lexington Medical Center and its associates. The questions would primarily assess the opinions of patients towards healthcare professionals and rankings of patient experiences within the Lexington Medical Center network. To increase participation, I will provide incentives which could be gift cards to restaurants in the Columbia area. I will fund these incentives through the hospital and their customer service department, or I will apply for grant money to fund my overall project. I will contact a Psychology professor at USC to help me formulate fair and valid questions that accurately assess the target population. After I receive the survey results, I will consider talking with Lexington Medical Center’s advertising department to start a campaign that discusses more personalized patient care. This campaign will be primarily conducted through social media, as to cut down on the potential costs. Participants that take the survey will have the option to sign up to receive a brochure outlining the importance of medical ethics within healthcare, which I will create based off of my curriculum plan for healthcare professionals at Lexington Medical Center.

 Step One: Selecting Important Ethical Topics

 

         The first task associated with my plan includes highlighting ethical principles that would be relevant to developing an educational curriculum for healthcare professionals employed by Lexington Medical Center. I would first contact Bioethics professors at USC to discuss theories that are most important to highlight within my curriculum. Through Philosophy 321, my Medical Ethics course, I learned about the Principle of Utility, which states that you should do that act which promotes the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. This Principle could be implemented when considering what treatment plan would maximize a cure but minimize side effects. Additionally, I have learned about Kant’s Categorical Imperative. This states that you should do the act that you would will to be a universal law. This could be applied to patient care directly, and relates to my rationale to treat every patient as family. If every healthcare professional considered the Categorical Imperative, then patient care would become more standardized because every patient would be treated with a personal consideration. Thus, healthcare professionals would feel obligated to consider the personal needs of every patient they encounter which would reduce subjectivity or preferential treatment. The implementation of case studies such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment in the early 1900s would help healthcare providers to understand the relevance of ethics in medicine and the implications of avoiding ethics in terms of truth telling and safe research practices. Along with case studies, I would include relevant issues in healthcare and highlight the need for ethical practices to form solutions that are optimal for patients. The paper I wrote for Medical Ethics outlining the need for ethical practices to be implemented within the Ebola Outbreak is attached. The Ebola Outbreak is a recent event that has sparked the debate on Bioethics in Healthcare Emergencies, and would be relevant to discuss especially since concerns regarding an outbreak of the Zika Virus is forming within the United States. Once I have prepared a list of ethics topics, I will contact Lexington Medical Center and start making a plan to formulate curriculum that could be implemented within the continuing education requirements for the hospital itself.

 Step Two: Forming a Curriculum

 

         To start forming a curriculum for employees at Lexington Medical Center to follow in order to become familiar with basic ethical principles, I will form a team that consists of representatives from most parties involved. I will speak with a Bioethics professor at USC to be on the team, I will include the Ethics Board at Lexington Medical Center, a member from the Executive Board as well as a few healthcare professionals at Lexington Medical Center including a Physician, a Physician’s Assistant and a Nurse Practitioner. This team, along with myself, will consider the ethical principles outlined and form a short curriculum to implement. This curriculum would include a short video series that outlines basic principles such as the Principle of Utility or the Categorical Imperative, which will be shown abiding by copyright laws. In addition to these videos, there would be a presentation relating the principle to Bioethics with the possibility of including a case study or a current issue within the healthcare field. Once the basic ethical principles are introduced, I would reach out to famous bioethicists such as Arthur Caplan to record a type of TED Talk about the implementation of ethical principles in the field of healthcare. There would also be an option for each workshop to have a guest lecturer, possibly a physician that could share a personal story related to the use of ethics within their everyday career. After the presentations, I would have a pamphlet for each workshop that outlines the principle discussed as well as its relevance within the healthcare field. The curriculum would include around 5 2-3 hour workshops which could be completed within a particular time span, at the discretion of the Hospital Board (an estimation would be approximately 6 months to a year to complete). In addition to the curriculum, I would introduce optional readings that would contribute to the cultivation of a basic ethical foundation. An example of these readings would be the book entitled “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, which outlines the story of Henrietta Lacks, from whom an immortal cell line was cultured and sold for millions of dollars. Her consent was questionable, as she did not give informed consent to have her cells sampled. Attached is a paper I completed outlining the ethical problems associated with Henrietta Lacks’ story. The costs associated with this curriculum would be the costs for the videos shown on basic ethical principles and the costs of hiring a bioethicist to film a video. Additionally, the workshops would have to pay employees for their time in completing the workshops.

 Step Three: Implementing the Program

 

         Once the curriculum is developed, I will contact ethics professors at USC to discuss the rigor of the program. Once the rigor of the program is decided on, I will plan a test series for a select group of healthcare professionals at Lexington Medical Center to complete. I would show them two of the workshops and upon completion they would fill out a survey to assess the rigor of the program as well as their opinions of the relevance of the program within their jobs. If the feedback is positive from this test group, I will ask them to become ambassadors for the program among their peers to improve morale regarding the program within the employee network at Lexington Medical Center. A possible pushback to the program would be the time commitment. Many healthcare professionals are busy and would not be readily accepting of the idea of multiple workshops. To combat this issue, I will have the ambassadors of the program answer any questions or concerns regarding the program. Another option that I would bring up with the hospital administration would be implementing the workshops online instead of in-person, which could significantly cut down on the costs of the program. Additionally, I will formulate an advertising campaign within the hospital to increase awareness of the importance of Bioethics in healthcare. I will contact the Advertising Department at Lexington Medical Center to come up with a title for the lecture series and then start a campaign within the Lexington Medical Center Network to increase awareness amongst employees and increase morale regarding the program. This campaign would be implemented through emails that include a flyer about the program as well as posting flyers in break rooms or other areas that employees frequent. After finalizing the program with Lexington Medical Center’s Ethics Board and other personnel involved in continuing education curriculum for healthcare professionals, a timeline can be formed to start the program within 6 months of the approval date and a rotation of departments can be made in order to make sure everyone has the opportunity to complete the workshops.

 

Step Four: Assessing Success

 

          In order to assess the success of the program, I will create a survey for patients who will see healthcare professionals after they complete the workshops. Although not all of these patients will be regular patients who could attest to a change in their ethical practices over time, it would still be considered a success to see a positive review from a new patient regarding the ethics of the care that they receive. I will also speak with the Ethics Board of the hospital to compare the number of ethical conduct cases regarding healthcare professionals before and after the program is initiated. Another way to measure the success of the program would be to have a follow up quiz for participants in the program. It would not only include an assessment of the basic ethical theories taught, but also practical applications that involve those theories in real life situations. I will also type up a report for supervisory positions to fill out regarding their employees’ and their changes in behavior. While this may not be the most reliable measurement, it would be helpful to receive feedback from people that know the participants personally.

 Step Five: Utilizing Acquired Skills

 

         The skills that I have developed within the classroom that will help me with my plan include organization. Developing study skills will help me to stay organized and to put in enough time in order to achieve my goals in a stepwise manner. Additionally, the public speaking skills I attained through Speech 140, Public Communications, will help me to contact the correct personnel and be confident in the presentation of my plan. My Graduation with Leadership Distinction class, University 401, has also taught me skills that will be useful in implementing my plan. I have learned about my personality through the Workplace Big 5 as well as my leadership skills through reading “Courage to Lead” by Charlie Farrell. Attached are my results from the Big 5 test conducted in University 401. Beyond the classroom, my leadership experience within my sorority has taught me how to manage large groups of people. This will be helpful in planning the logistics of the workshop, including capacities and developing a rotation of departments for the workshops. My professional work experience has taught me how to develop presentations and protocol, which will be useful in presenting my plan to hospital personnel and professors at USC.

University of South Carolina Logo

Source: http://sc.edu/toolbox/images/USC_Standard.jpg

 Project Timeline

 

         I plan to complete my project within 2 years of starting my planning. The initial identification of the ethical principles and the survey for patients I would estimate to be 4 months. Afterwards, the curriculum planning I would estimate to be 8 months. Afterwards, I would expect the implementation of the curriculum and test group to take a year. At the end of the 2 year period, my goal would be to have the curriculum in place and dates assigned for the first rounds of workshops as well as employees assigned to those dates. After an additional year, I would share the program with regional hospitals in hopes that a wave of ethics education for healthcare professionals would begin. If this curriculum were practiced among hospitals in the Southeast United States, then patient morale would greatly improve and healthcare can become more personalized not only technologically, but personally. Patients would be able to go to any doctor and feel as if they were being considered as a complex person instead of a patient number with a generic diagnosis.

 

 

© 2016 Victoria Riddle. Proudly created with Wix.com

USC Graduation with Leadership Distinction 

Professional & Civic Engagement

bottom of page