What?

On November 20th I attended the Foundations of Ethical Practice (“iEthics”) workshop, along with some of my dietetics classmates as well as students from other health disciplines. We were sorted into groups encompassing representatives from the various health professions, and we were guided through a case study, an ethical decision-making framework exercise, and we had the chance to explore our own professional codes of ethics and compare them against the codes held by other professions in the group. My group was a bit lacking in variety, perhaps, as we only had one dietetics student (me), one social work student, and four pharmacy students – but what we lacked in variety, we made up in thoughtful, lively discussion and enthusiasm for the topic.

So What?

I enjoyed having the chance to look more closely at the College of Dietitians of BC’s Professional Code of Ethics. I found it interesting to note that all of us in my group, regardless of the actual guidelines laid out on each code of ethics, seemed to share similar opinions about the components that should be included in a typical code of ethics – for example, we all felt that inter-professional collaboration and patient-centred care should be top priorities for all health professions. It made me wonder whether this is something we all felt going into our respective programs, or something that we’ve picked up in the few months that we’ve been a part of the inter-professional health curriculum.

The most helpful part of this workshop, to me, was the ethical decision-making framework. Because ethics can sometimes come across as a topic that is crucial in health care but at the same time can be sort of nebulous, I really appreciated having a concrete guide for ethical decision-making made available to me for tough situations that I’m sure to encounter in the future.

Now What?

I have already found myself thinking more about ethical decision-making in everyday life since I attended this workshop. The fact that the facilitators approached the topic from a day-to-day, low-risk ethics perspective was helpful in starting to apply the concepts in daily life. I also feel much better equipped to handle more difficult decisions in my future as a dietitian, both because I have a more concrete framework to apply and because I know I will have the rest of the health care team to offer support and varied perspectives.