1. Explain a situation where you have made an ethical decision. Discuss how you weighed up the values involved in that decision, the decision you made, and how you reflect on the decision now.
While I was working in a retirement village last year, I had to make the decision of refusing care to one of the residents. I’ve been a Nurse for over than ten years and it was the first time I ever refused care to someone. That doesn’t mean that they didn’t receive help/care, it means that I refused to be the one to do it, while assuring someone else would be accepting that responsibility. This resident was being repeatedly verbally abusive towards me, my colleagues and the other residents on the floor. She didn’t suffer from dementia or any mental condition that would prevent her from being respectful, and she had, up to that moment, always being treated kindly and respectfully. After trying to talk to her and help her understand that it was not right to treat people like that, and how we were doing our best to assist her; she caried on with the insults, yelling and calling names. So, I went to the nurse in charge, reported the event, wrote it down in the patients file, as instructed, and carried on with my duties with the other 19 residents, while the nurse in charge that day accepted to care for that resident for the rest of the shift. The healthcare staff have the responsibility to provide care, respecting the patients/clients decisions and privacy, meeting their requests whenever possible. But when there is risk to our safety (physical, emotional, psychological) or to the other patient/clients, that’s where we need to step back and find the safest option to proceed. It was not a comfortable decision, but it was a necessary one, and if necessary, I’d do the same decision again. Care and respect need to go both ways. Both healthcare staff and patients have responsibilities and rights I their interaction. For the team to be able to reach the best outcome for the patients/clients, both parts need to accept and fulfil their responsibilities, otherwise it’s nearly impossible to reach any goal.
2. Describe how your culture and the people around you have influenced your values and identity.
I believe that my values and identity have been mostly influenced by my family and religion. I believe we are all children of God, and it brings me a sense of unity to think of every person as part of a big family. Care, respect, integrity are a few of the values I try to live by and teach my children too. Also I believe that nothing good comes without effort. We all have responsibilities to fulfil. So I’ve always tried to work hard to reach my goals and to help those around me.
3. Identify your strengths and how they will support you during your learning journey.
One of the personality types test that I have done, gave the following result: ‘Logical, mathematically minded, methodical and sometimes seen as a perfectionist. They can be slow to make decisions and inflexible if rules and logic says otherwise. They are not big risk takers but love detail.’ After reading it to my family they agreed that if does sound mostly like my personality type. Another character strength profile test showed that my top six strengths are: Fairness, Forgiveness, Love of learning, Gratitude, Honesty and Kindness. After pondering over it a little (more like a lot), and thinking how those strengths can help me in my learning journey, I believe that my love of learning, logical and mathematically inclined brain will help me a lot in problem solving and processing all the learning content. Kindness is as welcomed as it is necessary when working with and for people, and despite our learning being about technology, it is also about the people we are doing it for and with.
4. Evaluate your limitations in terms of your learning and career development. How might these affect your learning journey?
Some of the limitations that I have noticed during this reflexion are: introversion, difficulty making decisions for thinking in too many possible variables and perfectionism. Those characteristics could affect the way I interact with other in my group, compromise my time management and set my expectations to a high level that I’m not ready to deliver yet.
5. Share an example of when you were trying to work productively with others, but there was resistance or tension. Discuss strategies you tried at the time, how effective they were, and your reflections on what other strategies you would try now and why.
My first job after college was as a Nurse in a retirement village in Brazil. Shortly after I started working there, I realized that they were not following the right safety protocols for medication administration. I discussed the issue with my manager and planned a meeting with the rest of the staff for instruction and training on the new procedures they would be expected to follow from that moment on. None of them were happy with the changes, because they were focused on the additional workload it would represent to them. They communicated their perspective to me, and I offered to help during the busiest periods of the day and reassured that those changes were necessary for both patients and staff safety. They followed the new protocols and later were able to see their benefits. If I ever have to deal with a similar situation, involving safety and legal issues, I will again choose to do what is right and adjust, as soon as possible, whatever is necessary for that. The right option is not always the easiest option.