Fostering Dignity and Respect in Healthcare: Ethical Concepts, Strategies, and Interpersonal Skills

This article discusses the importance of dignity and respect in healthcare and how professionals can maintain effective communication and use their interpersonal skills to deliver the best care outcomes. It explores ethical concepts like justice, beneficence, accountability, and autonomy, and provides strategies for maintaining dignity and respect in healthcare. The article also covers the importance of interpersonal skills like compassion, dignity, and respect in healthcare, and how they can be used to build trust and communication with patients.

Fostering Dignity and
Respect

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................3
What are the ethical concepts? Describe situation through principles and strategies. ...............3
How Professionals are responsible for maintaining effective communication and use their
interpersonal skills including compassion, dignity and respect to deliver the best care
outcomes.....................................................................................................................................6
Reflection....................................................................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

Introduction
Respect and dignity is consist of those behaviour which show important to other people.
Treating people with dignity means treating them good and kindness, talking with them politely
and helping them whenever they needed (Loizides, 2017). It also include to provide them
freedom in making effective decisions and live their live according to them self. It also include to
listen what they need and want in their life and respecting others decisions. For example, in case
children treat their parents good and listen their each instruction and respond them politely then
it is the way of showing dignity and respect toward parents. In context of hospitality sector, their
patients are treated well with the staff members. The staff member treat the patents with friendly
behaviour and communicate with them in polite manner which further help to make feel secure
to patients in hospitals. It further help to provide effective experience to patients while having
treatment of their diseases which is important for them to relax their mind while their treatment
and the good behaviour and respectful behaviour of staff members will help to keep them calm.
In the provided scenario, you are working as nurse in NHS foundation trust hospital. The
situation further explain that the nurse is working with lung cancer patients. Hence, it is essential
for the nurse to treat their patients with full dignity and respect so that patients have willpower
and courage to fight with their disease well and maintain a positive attitude. Mrs. Wang is the
patient suffering from cancer in this hospital (Helm, 2017). The following study further include
ethical concepts like pertaining to freedom, responsibilities and many others toward Mrs. Wang's
treatment. This report also include strategies which support to provide dignity and respectful
behaviour to Mrs. Wang at hospital. The following report also include professional
communication and interpersonal skills to make Mrs. Wang feel good and positive. This report
will ends with reflective study about self learning from the module.
Main Body
What are the ethical concepts? Describe situation through principles and strategies.
Ethics refers to the individual’s deposition, nature and overall character that is concerned
with the values and morals which are directed towards the difference between what is right and
wrong in several practices. As per the case study, Mrs, Wang is the patient at the Guy’s and St.
Thomas NHS foundation trust which is suffering from the lung cancer. With poor symptoms and
prognosis, she believes that she has very minimal time left to give. In addition to this, having an

overall understanding of English language, she leads to use Mandarin to communicate with their
professionals.
Despite from this, her two sons and extended family tends to request that she must not be told
her regarding her actual condition, instead of being lied about her tumour which is being in a
non-malignant state (Albu, 2017). In nursing, the ethical concepts are concerned with offering
fair care and overall treatment to each and every patient. It is also about offering the best possible
care and help to the patients so that they can get cure an effective manner. In the present
scenario, I also need to consider my roles and responsibilities towards the patients so that I can
offer proper care and support to the patients. In terms of suitable ethical concepts which are
discussed as: Principle of Justice: As per this principle, nurses needs to be fair at the time of offering
proper treatment and care to their patients (Haugen and et. al., 2021). It is also imperative
to treat each and every patient in an effective manner without offering any other sort of
consideration to different factors like creed, race, gender, caste and so on. Principle of Beneficence: Being a nurse, it is important to do effective right things for
the patients. According to this principle, it is also the duty of nurse to perform and also
assign work in the best capacity to serve the patients in an effective manner. Principle of accountability: It is also regarding the taken of responsibility of their own
actions. As per this situation, the nurses are responsible for their nursing care and other
concerning actions. Here, they also need to accept the overall accountability of the
consequences which are caused by their personal and professional actions. Principle of autonomy: Under this principle, the nurses tends to identify the patients as
the unique person who have proper right to have their own beliefs, values and perception.
Under this, the nurses are likely to motivate the patients to make their own decisions
without getting being impacted by the opinion of any other individual.
Use of power in care: Power is considered as the important factor which is helpful in terms
of influencing other individuals (Tehranineshat and et. al., 2020). With the help of power, it is
quite easy to influence the other people as they are likely to listen those individuals who are in
power. Generally, power is also concerned with the position hold by the individual. In this field,
the nurses tend to use their power to impact physicians, patients and other professionals. Apart

from this, the nurses get power from the position, knowledge, skills and other sources. For this,
they tend to use their skills and proper care of their patients.
If a nurse is working at the higher level and other healthcare professionals are also likely to
listen her. In terms of this situation, it is important to influence other individuals to offer better
and effective care to patients. In the present scenario, Mrs, Wang is suffering from serious cancer
issue (Ó Coimín and et. al., 2019). For this, the nurse is responsible to take care of cancer
patients of their hospital. Furthermore, Mrs, Wang is also not familiar with her own medical
conditions. In the present condition, nurses can effectively use the power to offer better and
effective care and support their patients. With the warm and healthy behaviour of Nurse, Mrs.
Wang will also feel comfortable during the overall treatment. Hence, it is also possible to use the
power for better and effective care of patients which is the most important ethical factor in
nursing.
Mrs. Wang is suffering from lung cancer and has poor prognosis and heath as she is also at
the end stage of Cancer and will not able to live long. She has the symptoms like breathlessness,
loss of weight and so on. further, she was not familiar with their overall seriousness on her own
medical conditions. In this context, the strategies which can be useful to maintain overall dignity
and respect of Mrs. Wang are discussed as underneath:
 Hospital staff need to appoint the person who can understand the overall language of
Mrs. Wang as it will make her feel that her culture is being valued. In terms of this, nurse
who is take care of the lady needs to learn few words of patient’s mother tongue. It will
further help in interacting with the Mrs. Wang in an effective manner. This strategy will
prove helpful to maintain proper communication among the staff of hospital staff and the
respective patient.
 Further, shared decision making must be taken into consideration by the medical
professionals of the trust that needs to undertake the members of Mrs. Wang’s family and
patient itself. The positive impact of same would be witnessed upon the patient as the
collective decision could be taken by her family and professionals with respect to her
condition that would be the best part to support her during the overall treatment of lung
cancer. Besides from this, the collective decision making would also be offer effective
respect and protection of dignity of Mrs. Wang.

 Nurses who is taking care of lung patients is needed to offer effective care to
Mrs. Wang because of her serious medical conditions. For this, nurse need to
use effective knowledge and understanding to taken care of lady. Hence, it
will improve the health condition of Mrs. Wang so that she can fight with
the cancer.
How Professionals are responsible for maintaining effective communication and use their
interpersonal skills including compassion, dignity and respect to deliver the best care
outcomes
Effective communication include to share all those essential and useful data to another
person in such a way which will help the respondent to understand the message clearly and
respond on their understanding (Gabay and Bokek-Cohen, 2019). It is essential to share full and
effective message to respondents in easy language which help the respondent to respond on their
understandings. Most of the companies perform written communication, verbal communication
and many other types of communication within their daily business activities. Communication
plays an important role within the organisation to maintain their culture well and motivate
employees to achieve their target. There are various kind of ways by which professionals of
hospital maintain effective communication with Mrs. Wang to treat her within the hospital and
few of the ways is mentioned below-
Focus on non-verbal communication: Communication is one of the most essential thing as it
helps in conveying the required information from one end to another. Communication is of two
types that is verbal and non-verbal communication. In non-verbal communication, two parties
communicate with each other without saying anything verbally or in a written manner (Avestan
and et. al., 2019). The non-verbal ways of communication include body movement, gestures and
the eye contact. In context of Mrs Wang, She was from a non-English origin and hence she
didn't understand English. Non verbal communication helped in the situation where the two
people spoke different languages and through body language and gestures the messages were
conveyed easily.
Active listening: This means paying attention to the speaker and effectively
comprehending what the other person is trying to convey. This helps in creation of a positive
environment around the conversation. In this process, the listener first listen to the whole

information that the speaker wants to convey without interrupting them in any whatsoever
manner. In context of Mrs Wang, active listening helps in establishing effective communication
and solving all the queries and issues.
Patient education: This refers to the process of influencing behaviour of the patient
without changing the skills, knowledge and attitude so that the health of the patient can be
maintained and improved. To provide effective education to the patient, there are several variety
of skills that needs to mastered (Zirak, Ghafourifard and Mamaghani, 2017). In context of Mrs
Wang, a better educational qualification also helps in understanding of the patient and
appropriate condition.
Personal connections- The effective communication can be ensured by building of
strong personal connection. Improving personal connections with the people helps in making the
communication better as the other end understands the condition well. In context of Mrs Wang,
the importance of building a strong bond is helpful in understanding the feelings and emotions.
Verbal communication- This type of communication is the most used one as this helps in
conveying the feelings and information with the help of words. The other end expresses
themselves by making a choice of words (Yoo and Cho, 2020). In context of Mrs Wang, verbal
communication is helpful for her as she will establish a ground through which she will be able to
express her feelings and thoughts.
Interpersonal skills refers to those skills which are helpful for the individuals when they
communicate and interact with other people. These includes wide variety of skills but majorly it
includes the communication skills that speaking and listening. Individuals who have the
interpersonal skills are more likely to perform well in a communication process as their
expression is more effective. In context of Mrs Wang, she can use variety of interpersonal skills
which will help her in building trust and communication.
Compassion- This involves the process of motivating people so that they can get out of
the physical, mental and emotional pains. Compassion is one of the act of love which helps in
lowering the suffering that the person is going through (Rahman, 2019). In context of Mrs
Wang's case, the nurse who is taking care of her and other patients must show compassion and
heal them by listening to their sufferings. Offering reassurance to the patients is one of the most
task which helps in providing mental stability to the patients.

Dignity- This is one of the major right of the individual where the person must feel
valued and respected in the environment. This is one of recognition of the individuals where they
possess a value that is intrinsic to the humanity. Every human being in the universe must be
treated with respect and dignity regardless of the age, status, gender and such factors. In context
of Mrs Wang, she should be treated with full respect and dignity in the hospital so that she can
feel helpful by seeing the behaviour of the nursing staff.
Respect- This refers to the positive feeling and action that is felt for someone, this can be
due to the position of high esteem and regard (Jamalimoghadam and et. al., 2019). Respect is one
of those areas where the qualities of someone is appreciated and admired. In the hospitality
sector, the term RESPECT stands for the Recommended Summary Plan for Emergency Care and
Treatment. It actually involves the process in which the summary of the personalised
recommendations for the clinical care of the individuals in case of future emergency. In context
of Mrs Wang, it is essential for the hospital to engage the patients in a healthy environment so
that the patients who need medical assistance can feel that they are respected and cared by the
staff. This plays a major role in recovering the health of the patient.
The healthcare sector is one of those industry that is based on to save the lives of the
human by treating them with full care and medical science. There is high importance of effective
communication with the co-workers and the patients as it helps in effectively comprehending the
problems and issues that the patient is facing and trying to convey. The importance of patiently
listening to the patients is one of the major ability and skills that the nurses and doctors must
have as this helps in treating them with the right medicines (Adamson and et. al., 2017). If the
healthcare staff lacks in the communication skills then they are high chances that there will be a
devastating situation in their operations. Effective communication is build on several aspects
which are discussed above, these aspects ensure that the patient is feeling empathy even in the
difficult situations when they are suffering form diseases.
Reflection
From the above information I get to know about the importance of dignity and respect in
hospitals. Recently, I am working in Guy's and St Thomas which is a hospital in NHS foundation
trust as an Nurse. I am treating a patient of cancer whose name is Mrs. Wang. During my
responsibilities toward her I get to know that dignity and respectful behaviour help me to

perform my job effectively and make patients feel that they are safe and secure with us in the
hospital. Kolbs model of reflection is given below-
Concrete experience- This means forming a new experience or imagine again about the
existing situation. According to this step, only watching others to perform task is not helpful. It is
essential that they have to learn from their observations. Participants are assigned various tasks
and they are supposed to learn from their given tasks. I have the experience of working as a
Nurse in a well reputed hospital. While working as a nurse I get to know various aspects of my
professional area where I need to modify my behaviour and attitude to treat different behavioural
of patients (Afulani, Sayi and Montagu, 2018). I get to know that behaving with dignity and
respect is essential for me in my professional area.
Reflective observation- Here, people reflect about their learning experience with others.
It is essential that effective communication will take place in this stage so that people will easily
understand the situation and its outcome. According to given scenario, I worked with lung cancer
patient and with my skills and knowledge to treat with patients, I treat her well and try to
generate confidence and motivation in her behaviour and mind set so that she will survive with
positive attitude.
Abstract conceptualization- Here, learner make the conclusion of the experience which
they gained earlier. I conclude my learning experience that behaving with dignity and respect
with patients will help to enhance my skills and knowledge as a nurse. Secondly, I also get to
know that having effective communication with patients will also help me to understand them
well and motivate them to be positive in fighting their diseases.
Active experimentation- Here, learners make predictions and also make plans to
enhance their skills and knowledge for future situations. In present scenario, I am a nurse who
handle cancer patients well. I supposed to analyse the situation of patient and then plan
accordingly that what kind of behaviour and attitude they require to keep calm and positive. Such
kind of plans help me to enhance my skills and knowledge to handle different patients according
to their serious conditions. Here, I get to know different ways in which I have to deal in near
future to enhance my professional skills.
Conclusion
It is concluded that behaving people with respect and dignity will help to motivate them
and maintain a confidence in them that they deserve good things in their life. This module help to

analyse how a lung cancer treated well by a nurse in hospital. The whole module is related to
ethical behaviour and concept of hospital staff toward their patients. Mrs. Wang who is serious
lung cancer patient get effective communication with hospital staff members and this will further
help staff members to enhance their skills and knowledge well in their professional areas of
work.

References
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