As health professionals, we will always be guided by morality and ethics. Morality represents what we believe that is right and good for our patients, it is something that we build personally according to our culture, family background, past experiences, religion, etc. It is related to integrity and honesty. Therefore, it is said that it is impossible to teach moral to someone – moral is something that we build by ourselves.
On the other hand, ethics is a reflex of morality when we are performing an activity. Being ethical means practicing our profession considering the rules that drive it and our understanding of these rules. Together, morality and ethics determine our behaviour facing simple and complex situations as physiotherapists – situations with our patients and with other professionals working in the same field.
Many times, there isn’t a right or wrong answer for ‘conduct questions’ that we might face in the work place. What will help us to make good decisions on these cases will be our moral and ethics. Therefore, it is very important for us to understand and work on those competences.
Post by Danielle Aquino Silva, UFMG.
