The Importance of Being a Healthcare Professional

The other day, a colleague of ours commented that healthcare jobs – unlike so many others – are among the few that "really count." This made us think.

Artists may entertain us, but if they don't paint, sing, or act for a year, we can wait for their next appearance. Teachers give us the important tools we need to make something of ourselves – they instruct, motivate, and inspire us, but they are not responsible for life-or-death situations.

Though we often give a disproportionate amount of praise and monetary reward to sports or entertainment figures, inevitably, we all get sick, and then we must turn to healthcare professionals. We cannot make do without their skills.

Healthcare Professionals are Irreplaceable

Each person has unique technical skills and everything done by one person impacts the next step in the ongoing treatment of the patient. A surgeon cannot replace a laboratory technologist, a nurse cannot replace a pharmacist, and so on. We depend on, and expect, the proper execution of these skills: the accuracy of tests performed by a lab technologist, radiographer, or MRI technologist leads to the accurate diagnosis by the doctor. Constant vigilance by nurses, respiratory therapists, lab technologists, BME technicians, and pharmacists regarding medications, sterile procedures, tests, and treatments ensures that nothing is missed and minimizes the risk of complications.

Always Being Up-to-Date

We rely on and, again, expect each member of a healthcare team to be observant, analytical, and constantly up-to-date about the latest methods of diagnosis and treatment. With so many possible diagnoses and modes of treatment, and, for more serious conditions, so many steps in treatment, things can go wrong at many levels. Nowadays, healthcare professionals also have to deal with patients who have heard the names of the latest drugs in the media and have been surfing the web, finding both accurate and less than accurate health information (forgetting the warning of Mark Twain: "Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint"). Healthcare professionals have to be vigilant regarding this trend toward self-diagnosis but also praise the patient's interest in their own health. It's a fine balance.

Sales and Teaching Skills

Healthcare professionals must be able to sell, often unpleasant, realities, such as needed lifestyle changes. Teaching skills are necessary for frontline individuals like doctors, nurses, rehabilitation professionals, social workers, and mental health workers, who are often in a position to nip things in the bud before they exacerbate and require extensive intervention, such as hospitalization.

That Leads us to PR Skills

Healthcare workers often operate on a sort of autopilot and may forget the impact of their interpersonal skills. Consider the interviewing or questioning of a patient: If this is done in a disapproving or confrontational manner, will the patient be less than forthcoming (which could lead to an inaccurate diagnosis) or be scared away from further treatment? Or if the professional provides information in too complicated or overwhelming a manner, is there a risk that the patient will not comply with the treatment? Therefore, healthcare workers must be constantly aware that the patient is a thinking, feeling, and, more than likely, frightened person looking to them for information and reassurance every step of the way.

The empathy and sensitivity with which patients are treated effects how quickly they recover, their confidence in the treatment, whether they stick to their treatment, and whether or not they make long-term changes for the good of their health. We often hear that a past experience of illness was the motivating factor that led someone to a career in healthcare. For instance, there is the story by Bonnie Jarvis-Lowe (Illness, Perfume & Black Chiffon), who, as a six-year-old child sick with bacterial meningitis, was so touched by a nurse that, as soon as she finished high school, she enrolled in nursing and made it her career.

An Outstanding Job

Ultimately, healthcare professionals have to wear many hats: they are healers, caregivers, confidants, teachers, motivators, and role models. Yes, many jobs are important for our society to function. But it is the fact that healthcare workers have special, irreplaceable skills, and commit themselves to helping sick, vulnerable people – at times at the risk of their own health – that makes them stand apart, that makes them really count.

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