In this essay, I am going to discuss about the reason why I chose to become a physician assistant and how three ethical principles: autonomy, beneficence, and dignity play an essential role in my ethical decision making in a healthcare practice.
My academic background and work had contributed to the decision to become a PA. I majored in biochemistry in undergraduate, subsequently, I was accepted at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain) in a master’s degree program in Pharmacology Research and Drug Discovery. However, when I started working in a laboratory, I was not satisfied because the work environment in a lab was solitary. I may be a quiet person, but I felt like a lab rat and I knew I was not happy. My work was related to organic chemistry where we tried to synthesize macromolecules, they often required multiple experiments and for this kind of job, patience was the way to go. Despite the low work satisfaction, I never regretted my education path because I studied what I enjoyed, so I decide to change my career. I wanted a career where I could interact with people and use my science background to help people.
While I truly enjoyed my research work, I realized I was more suitable to work in a healthcare setting. I felt a strong need to interact with actual, flesh and blood patients rather than simply work at a laboratory. The physician assistant career is also flexible, which means that it is easier to change jobs or to specialize in some specialty. In this career, the York College program emphasizes the patient centered approach, where the patient-PA relationship is built in mutual trust, respect and agreement to work together for patient’s wellbeing (AAPA, 2013). Another great advantage of being a physician assistant is the team environment, the collaborative nature of the work itself and the opportunity to only focus on patients are some of the best aspects of becoming a PA.
The ethical principles that would play important role in my ethical decision-making in clinical practice are autonomy, beneficence, and dignity. Autonomy is the ability to make independent choice with respect to one’s own life and well-being (Yeo, 2010, p. 93). Beneficence is to do good towards others, it is acting on the patient’s best interest that would benefit him/her (Yeo, 2010, p. 103). And dignity is defined as the worth or value given for being human beings (Sulmasy, 2013, p. 938). These three principles were chosen due to the applicability in healthcare, and specially in patient care. By the end of the first semester, I acquired more knowledge and experience during hospital visits. When interviewing patients, I applied all these three principles from the start, for example, if the patient wanted to stop the interview, I had to comply respecting patient’s autonomy. Beneficence can be observed in healthcare setting constantly since that is my main reason to become a PA, to treat, diagnose, and take care of patients. The dignity of the patient can be appreciated when I cover the patient with her or his patient’s gown after a physical exam. During the didactive phase, physician assistants are trained to have a patient-centered approach, where the patient’s psychosocial conditions are explored; the concept of implicit bias and health disparities are studied in order for us to identify them in the future, and being aware of their existence, we might be able to improve our quality of care and treat patients with dignity.
In this essay, I examined the reasons of switching my career to become physician assistant and I also explored three ethical principles that are essential when making ethical decision-making.
Sources:
AAPA. (2013). Guidelines for Ethical Conduct for the Physician Assistant Profession. Available
online: https://www.aapa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/16- EthicalConduct.pdf.
Sulmasy, DP. (2013). The varieties of human dignity: A logical and conceptual analysis. Medicine, Healthcare and Philosophy, 16(4), 937-44.
Yeo, M et al. (2010). Autonomy. In M Yeo et al. (eds.). Concepts and Cases in Nursing Ethics. [3rd edition] Ontario: Broadview Press, pp. 91-97, 103-109.
Yeo, M., & Moorhouse A. (2010). Beneficence. In Yeo, M., Moorhouse A., Khan P., & Rodney, P. (Eds.), Concepts and Cases in Nursing Ethics. [3rd edition] (pp. 103-116). Ontario, Canada: Broadview Press.
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