Personal Values and Spiritual Beliefs
Instructions:
Write a paper of 750-1,000 words examining your personal values and beliefs. Include the following:
- Describe your personal values and spiritual beliefs.
- Using the elements of cost, quality, and social issues to frame your description,differentiate your beliefs and opinions about health care policy. Give examples of relevant ethical principles, supported by your values.
- Analyze how factors such as your upbringing, spiritual or religious beliefs/doctrine, personal and professional experiences, and political ideology affect your current perspective on health care policy.
- Examine any inconsistencies you discovered relative to the alignment of your personal values and beliefs with those concerning health policy. Discuss what insights this has given you.
Prepare this assignment in the APA Format. An abstract is not required
Solution
Personal Values and Spiritual Beliefs
Personal values, spiritual beliefs, and attitudes of individuals shape the way they interact with other persons in their daily lives. These sets of values are ingrained in individuals throughout their upbringing such that they shape their mentality and decision making process (Roccas & Sagiv, 2010). Health care professionals are no exceptions and such values are important in shaping their interactions art the work place. Some of my values include competence, open communication, care, patience, safety, personal growth, personal fulfillment, honesty, respect, responsibility, fairness, cooperation, and family. In my interactions with other persons, either in my professional of personal life, I strive to achieve these values and to uphold them. On the other hand, from a spiritual perspective, I believe in the value of life, such that all persons deserve to live to ripe age and to achieve high levels of health. As such, I believe that it is the responsibility of each and every person to ensure that they uphold the health and safety of the people around them in all their interactions. In addition, I believe in equality, such that all persons deserve to achieve happiness and that there is no one who deserves happiness more than the other. Every life lived is valuable regardless of the social and economic differences.
Beliefs and Opinions About Health Care Policy
As earlier mentioned, I belief that all persons are equal and hence deserving of the same access to public services. In this view, considering the aspect of cost of health care, I believe that it is important for the cost of health care to be distributed according to how affordable it is in order to allow all persons regardless of their socio-economic status, to access health care services. This is in line with the ethical principle of justice which spell out that resources should be distributed in a fair and equal manner, with a consideration of the burdens and benefits of decision (Braveman, et al., 2011). As such, all citizens, regardless of their contributions, have a right to access quality health care.
On the other hand, in terms of quality, I believe that health care professionals have a mandate to offer quality health care to all persons regardless of their social, economic, or political status. This is in line with the principle of fidelity, which emphasizes the concept of remaining commitment to the promise of providing care. As such, health care professionals ought to always be loyal, truthful, fair, dedicated, and advocates of their patients (Toren & Wagner, 2010). Lastly, I believe that life should be protected in all possible means and that adequate efforts ought to be put in place to help individuals achieve their highest levels of health and to provide them with safety. This upholds the principle of beneficence, which emphasizes on the need to show compassion and active in a positive manner to help those in need (Will, 2011). As such, health care professionals have the primary mandate of advocating for the needs of their patients and to treat the with equal importance regardless of their status in society or cultural, ethnic, or racial background.
Factors That Affect Perspective On Health Care Policy
Spirituality has shaped my perspective on health care policy in a great way. From a spiritual dimension, life has a deeper dimension, the soul’s inner world. As such, this perspective implies that individuals are spiritual beings who live both in a physical and a spiritual universe (Rumun, 2014). Through an understanding of spirituality, I have developed a better understanding of the need to help individuals achieve health not only ibn terms of their physical state, but also their inner being. This proposes the importance of holistic care in the health care environment, whereby an individual’s mental, psychological, and emotional wellbeing should be given the same attention and their physical health in order to facilitate complete healing (Rumun, 2014). My upbringing has also tremendously contributed towards my perspective on health care policy. I was nurtured into a caring person by my parents, who always showed me care and showed much concern of the people around us. My mother was always concerned with incidences that affect the health of people such as natural and artificial disasters, such that she could volunteer to offer humanitarian services to the victims of such events. It is through the nurturing process that various values are imparted into individuals and a certain mentality is developed in them, one that later shapes their decision-making process (Komro, Flay, & Biglan, 2011).
Insights Gained from Inconsistencies
One of the prominent inconsistencies is the achievement of my value of personal fulfillment and that of offering health care to individuals while respecting their own cultural backgrounds. It is a challenge to ensure that I achieve fulfillment in cases where a patient’s cultural or personal beliefs contradict with my beliefs, such that they do not hold value for their own life and are not cooperative in embracing any efforts put forth to help them achieve good health. In addition, it is a challenge to align my value for honesty with the need to withhold some of the information given to the patient in order to protect them from emotional or psychological harm. These inconsistencies have allowed me to understand the need to embrace cultural competence and to put aside my cultural or spiritual beliefs when dealing with patients and to tolerate their beliefs and try to increase their understanding of the value of their life and their importance in the society. On the other hand, I have been able to understand the importance of upholding the principle of paternalism in the care of patience, such that every decision should be made in the patient’s best interest, and that any action that is believed to hold the potential of negatively affecting the wellbeing of the patient should be avoided.
References
Braveman, P. A., Kumanyika, S., Fielding, J., LaVeist, T., Borrell, L. N., Manderscheid, R., & Troutman, A. (2011). Health disparities and health equity: the issue is justice. American Journal of Public Health, 101(S1), S149-S155.
Komro, K. A., Flay, B. R., & Biglan, A. (2011). Creating nurturing environments: A science-based framework for promoting child health and development within high-poverty neighborhoods. Clinical child and family psychology review, 14(2), 111-134.
Roccas, S., & Sagiv, L. (2010). Personal values and behavior: Taking the cultural context into account. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4(1), 30-41.
Rumun, A. J. (2014). Influence of Religious Beliefs on Healthcare Practice. International Journal of Education and Research, 2(4), 37-48.
Toren, O., & Wagner, N. (2010). Applying an ethical decision-making tool to a nurse management dilemma. Nursing Ethics, 17(3), 393-402. Will, J. F. (2011). A brief historical and theoretical perspective on patient autonomy and medical decision making: part I: the beneficence model. Chest Journal, 139(3), 669-673.
