Have you ever wondered why sometimes you feel good about the healthcare worker who is caring for you and other times you simply do not? We all want to be cared for by the “feel good” healthcare workers, but what makes the difference? Professional qualities! Simply said, but not so simply taught or learned, professional qualities are the backbone to a successful career for any healthcare worker. By acquiring these qualities, the healthcare worker becomes the healthcare professional. But what makes a professional, and what are these qualities? Show Professionalism is the conduct, aims, or qualities that characterize or mark a profession or a professional person. A career in healthcare requires hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills are the specific technical and operational proficiencies of the career. For a medical assistant these include job tasks, such as measuring blood pressure or working within an electronic health record program like EHRclinic. On the other hand, soft skills are the personal qualifications or behaviors that enhance an individual’s interactions, job performance, and career prospects. These are sometimes called people skills. Soft skills are less concrete and more difficult to observe and evaluate. Since much of the medical assistant’s role involves dealing with other people, whether a patient, a patient’s family member, a coworker, an insurance agent, a pharmaceutical sales representative, a laboratory staff member, or anyone else there are certain professional qualities and soft skills necessary to be successful. These qualities are what make medical assistants career ready. The professional qualities that medical assistant students must learn and develop as part of a medical assistant educational program include:
Understanding and developing the above qualities as part of a medical assistant educational program is necessary for student and professional success. From the first day to the last day, it is the challenge of the educator to infuse the learning of hard skills together with learning these qualities and the soft skills. This can be done through many techniques, including the use of digital tools. In a recent survey conducted by McGraw-Hill of medical assisting programs, 59% of instructors said the digital tools they currently use help develop career readiness skills, such as professionalism, critical thinking/problem solving, communication, and teamwork. The more a student is able to practice real-world situations that require the use of these medical assistant qualities the better prepared for they will be for their career. The key to the development of professional qualities is repetition, repetition, repetition. Contact your McGraw-Hill sale representative to obtain a poster for your classroom regarding the Qualities of a Medical Assistant. Try the activities provided at [https://mheducation.link/HealthProfessions] to begin the infusion of developing professional qualities in your medical assistant students. By understanding and practicing the Qualities of a Medical Assistant, we are transitioning our students from healthcare workers to healthcare professionals and working toward creating the type of healthcare professional that makes patients “feel good.” Which of the professional characteristics is the most valuable to a medical professional?Empathy and compassion. Above all else, a good health professional can show compassion to their patients and provide comfort when they need it. At times, your patients may find themselves in difficult or frustrating situations and they need someone to listen, to understand and respect their wishes or point of view.
What are the values of the medical profession?These fundamental values include Compassion, Respect for Persons, Commitment to Integrity and Ethical Practice, Commitment to Excellence, and Justice in Healthcare. They embody the human dimensions of healthcare and are fundamental to the practice of compassionate, ethical and safe relationship-centered care.
What are the characteristics of professionalism in healthcare?But demonstrating professionalism in healthcare also requires the ability to communicate this expertise in an easy-to-understand way, with honesty, compassion, confidentiality and trust.
What is the most important value that healthcare workers should have?Empathetic: It's important to understand and relate to a patient's feelings. Not to be confused with sympathy, empathy is an important trait that healthcare professionals must possess.
|