Are You Personally What You are Professionally?

I am a member of the ANA Congress on Nursing Practice & Economics. As a Congress member, I received a copy of ANA's Guide to the Code of Ethics for Nurses: Interpretation and Application. See www.nursingworld.org.

I love this guide! I will have enough to post on just from this guide for at least a month.

On page 60, Interpretive Statement 5.3: Wholeness of Character, this question is posed:

Can a person who is a rogue, scoundrel, liar, and cheat in personal life be a virtuous nurse in professional life? It is unlikely.

What we are personally, we are professionally. Our personal and professional identities are neither separate, nor coextensive; they are integrated and deeply commingled, mutually influencing each other. The person who has become "a nurse" as opposed to the person who "does nursing," is the one who has incorporated and integrated the values of the profession with personal values.

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What does this mean to you as a nurse? Do you agree with this statement? Are you a nurse or do you do nursing? Are the values of the profession your personal values? Are you personally what you are professionally? How do you if your professional and personal lives are agreeable and harmonious?

Are some of us living secret personal lives as licensed professionals that will eventually impact, threaten, and destroy our professional lives?

Look at the secret personal life of Eliot Spitzer, the former Governor of the State of New York. Compare and contrast his secret personal life with his professional life as a Governor and former State Attorney General. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/nyregion/10cnd-spitzer.html?hp

Comments

[Jack Stem]

I'm always amused and amazed that people seem to think we can separate our private selves from our public selves. I heard someone say how we conduct ourselves "at home" in our personal life reveals who we REALLY are, not the mask we wear in our public/professional life. I think this is a result of "situational ethics" or "the ends justify the means" thinking.

I'm sure very few nurses have ever read the Code of Ethics. The statement I like the most:

"The code of ethics establishes the ethical for the profession. It is not negotiable in any setting."

[latonia]

I am sorry to hear about your issues with your husband. I think you are personally what you are professionally. If you are a liar and thief in your personal life (or vice versa) at some point it will affect your professional life because the two are not mutually exclusive. Take care of yourself.

[Terry]

I agree with this comment wholeheartedly. I am married to an advanced practice nurse in ohio. He lacks integrity and ethical conscience. My spouse is a liar and cheat and how that has impacted his working career is; boundary violations, theft of medications, power struggles that involve patient care, violating confidentialtiy practices and other narcasisstic traits that have spilled over into his "practice" of nursing.
I also am a nurse and I would not dream of violating patient rights and crossing boundaries as he has. It is sad that the last affair he had was with a nurse that has gone down the dark path with him.
This ethical statement rings very true for myself, nursing for me is a lifestyle, not a job.