Are You A Real Health Care Professional?

Are You a Real Health care Professional?
The healthcare arena today, has workers with many different levels of education. However, regardless of the letters after your name, there are certain skills that everyone should have in order to be perceived as a “professional” health care worker. While the technical skills are necessary to deliver competent care to a patient, the soft skills are the skills that set you apart. Not developing those skills can make you less effective as a caregiver and co-worker and tarnish the title, “professional.”

Patients assume you know how to do your job in the clinical sense, but it is how you deliver that care that makes all of the difference in their perception of the care they receive.

Take a step back and ask yourself some questions about how you conduct yourself when caring for patients and working with others.

• Am I giving my patients my undivided attention immediately upon seeing them?
• Do I introduce myself and state my position with every new patient encounter?
• Do I shake hands with the patient and their family members?
• Do I give good eye contact when speaking and listening to a patient? Can I note the color of their eyes?
• Do I connect with the patient personally before starting to chart on the computer?
• Do I look at the patient when I ask a question and return to the keyboard to enter data?
• Am I respectful by addressing patients formally, especially older patients?
• What message does my body language convey? Do I have my hand on the door knob and one foot out the door before I close the conversation with the patient?
• Am I well-groomed from top to bottom? Do I have on clean shoes and a pressed uniform?
• Do I chew gum in public?
• Am I sensitive to the needs of my co-workers? Do I offer help before being asked?
• Do I manage up my co-workers and the physicians?
• Do I pull rank on team members?
• Do I recognize the value of everyone on the team?

Don’t just let the letters behind your name define you as a professional. If you answered no to many of these questions it may be time to review some professional courtesy skills to improve the perception others have of you as a “professional” and to become a genuine professional.

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