My Personal Ethics Statement
Dawn Belt
University of Phoenix
Health Law and Ethics
HCS 478
Shavonnie Carthens
July 03, 2015

My Personal Ethics Statement
Ethics is defined by "the branch of philosophy concerned with evaluating human action", (Wacker Guido, 2010, Chapter 1). I have spent a large amount of time reflecting on ethics as what ethics means to me, as well as, which values are the most important to me and how I live by them. I find ethics to mean who one feels about doing the right thing and accountability. Values are our characteristics that help us to be ethical. During my journey through the Ethical Lens Inventory, I had to ponder over the many stages and encounters throughout my life. I am amazed at how, so many small, and what I thought to be insignificant encounters, I had in my life has made a big impact on my values. The list of all the encounters is too long to provide here in my personal ethics statement. Therefore, this paper will focus on the encounters that have made the most impact on the most important values to me.
As I reflect on my years of growing up, I remember my parents trying to teach right from wrong. My father seemed to teach right from wrong by always focusing on my wrongs as I cannot remember learning right from wrong with something that I did or did not do for the good. I was in fourth grade when I collected every student's pencils and kept them at my desk. Taking the pencils were considered stealing, and when my parents found out, the punishment made me think about what I had done and why it was wrong as how it affected everyone else involved. My grandfather was a Baptist Minister for many years before changing to a middle school principal. I remember going to my grandparent's house for dinner after church every Sunday, as I loved my grandmother's mash potatoes. My grandparents were foster parents; so, therefore, there were always many children around their house. My grandparents insisted that I share all the toys with the foster children. My grandmother would say, "It is only fair to share all the toys as you would want them share with you." Which brings up another childhood belief that may have contributed to my values was the belief of Santa Claus. In my family, it was taught that Santa only brought presents to "good" children. It was easy to know a "good" action versus a "bad" one, as my father disciplined us on every "bad" decision or action we made. I am a middle child of three and had felt, during my childhood, that there were many times issues arose that were just not fair. I found later when raising my two daughters, which I made it a point to be as fair as possible and I am very proud of the decision as well as results.
I grew up with a father that was prejudice to anyone that was not white, except the American Indian. I never understood it and still don't. There had been several occasions my father made horrible inappropriate statements about other people who were not Caucasian and made them in front of them as well as others. My younger brother later learns to demonstrate the same behavior. The thoughts of one human being thinking they are better than another human being baffles my mind and therefore I could never understand and found anyone who expressed these beliefs out loud incredibly embarrassing. I no longer have a relationship with either of them as they are not able to change their beliefs. Family, meaning my husband and two daughters are by far most important to me than anything else. With this being said, it was important to me that my family not be exposed to the ugliness of my father & brother that was a deciding factor when I chose to remove them from my life.
I have had so many inconsiderate experiences in my life, too many to count, as the people seemed think their time is more important than anyone else's. These inconsiderate people demonstrated this by cutting in line, talking during a movie or ceremony, talking to others, and thinking about anyone else except themselves. During this reflection I realized that all these ridiculous encounters I have had throughout my life have only reinforced my value of being courteous and thinking of others.
I currently work seven days a week, working two jobs, to help my girls through college, which has limited my spare time. The "no time for anything else" makes, it so I do not have time to think about my values, beliefs, and ethics. It has been a nice week since this class has required me to do so. As I have journeyed through this process, I was able to take a look at my daughters and husband as well. I thought it to be important to see if we had neighboring values. I learned that many of my values had developed over the last 26 years from knowing and living with my husband. He has always put the family first and keeps an open mind to be as fair as possible. I feel my childhood experiences of unfairness had given me a negative feeling until I met my husband who made an impact on me enough to change it towards a positive. My daughters who are 21 and 19 amaze me every day. My daughters are young, yet their family always comes first, do onto others as they would want to be done to them. They are also fair and courteous to others, and try to do the right thing.
What this all means is that I find my family to be the most important value to me followed by being courteous to others while being fair. Other important values to me are trustworthiness and reliability. Working in the nursing profession has also helped reinforce my values as I have had many situations that needed me to be honest (trustworthy) and reliable. Several years ago I had done about 3 or 4 dispositions as an OB nurse. There were a couple of times that the Physician's lawyer tried on to get me to change my statement. Due to my personal values, there was no way I would change my testimony. I work for a behavioral health crisis line every Friday & Saturday night. Last night I received a call from one of our Mobile Crisis Team Professionals who wanted "Community Stabilization". I explained to her that based on the assessment provided, this member is not safe to be discharged home from the ER to the care of her mother. This member is 16 years old who has been on Risperdal and began rambling on and on to herself or others who would listen. She was not able to complete a full mobile crisis assessment the member was not responding to external stimuli & the information had been obtained by the mother & not the member. The MCT wanted to insist on sending her home with her mother. I requested & spoke with their supervisor stating this member is not safe for discharge & need to be placed in 1 behavioral acute care. After explaining the reasoning, he agreed. I felt I did the right thing, & was fair. I gave the original assessor a change to reevaluate her decision however she was not able to do so. I felt very strongly that it was "not" the right thing to do by sending this member home. I was, however, able to convince the supervisor to keep the member in the ER until level 1 placement. As I work my second job at the crisis call center, I find my ethics and values being challenged almost daily. I do have to admit, sometimes the law causes me to react to certain situations, for example the "cover yourself belief". I make every effort to verbalize key information to the members as well as I thoroughly document at specific times while providing significant information. I have watched others not do the same. When I worked the night shift, in the labor and delivery unit, for the local hospital, I found, on too many occasions, difficulty with getting the physician to the hospital when needed. The needed situations were either due to non-reassuring fetal heart tones or increased pain and change in her condition like developing preeclampsia. Once I was able to realize, I was not able to change the physician’s behavior as I can only change mine.
I am now able to pinpoint which values are the most important to me which are family, courtesy, fairness, do the right thing, be trustworthy & reliable keeping accountability.
References
Wacker Guido, G. (2010). Legal & Ethical issues in Nursing (5th ed.). [University of Phoenix ]. http://dx.doi.org/9780135079980