Obligations of a Professional

Entering a Health Care Profession

Legal Practice Act
•  Outlines activities providers perform in delivery of patient care
•  Develops code of ethics to assist in self-regulation
•  Outlines profession’s mission and objectives
Specialty Practice Acts
•  Scope of professional practice
•  Requirements and qualifications for licensure or certification
•  Exemptions to basic requirements.
•  Grounds for administrative actions
•  Penalties and sanctions for unauthorized practice
Sanctions for Lapse in Ethical, Legal, and
Professional Etiquette
• Ethical conduct – right or wrong?
• Sanction: loss of professional reputation, loss of professional affiliations
• Legal requirements – legal or illegal?
• Sanction: punishment as prescribed by law
• Professional etiquette – proper or improper?
• Sanction: loss of professional respect and fellowship
Professional Etiquette
• • Avoid talking badly about another practitioner (especially in front of
patients)
• • Maintain appropriate relationships at the worksite
• • Stay within role boundaries of your specialty
• • Rules of etiquette help maintain order and civility
Health Care Ethics
• promulgated to provide the physicians with proper ethical and
professional standards in the practice of Medicine to ensure the
safety and welfare of patients.

• Ethical questions: values, morals, individual culture, intense personal

beliefs, and faith
Ethics: how we make judgments in regard to right and wrong
Health Care Ethics
• 1.1. Principle of Respect for Life.The right to life is inviolable. Life is a necessary
condition for all other human goods. It must be protected and fostered at all its
stages beginning from conception to its natural end.
• 1.2. Principle of Respect for Person. Every person has an intrinsic worth and
dignity.Trust shall be central to the physician-patient relationship. Physicians shall
respect patient autonomy.
• 1.3. Principle of social justice. All patients have a right to basic healthcare and a just
process in the allocation of resources.
• 1.4. Principle of Beneficence. The interest of the patient shall be placed above
those of the physician. Societal pressures, financial gains and administrative
exigencies shall not compromise this principle.
• 1.5. Primum Non Nocere. The foremost responsibility of the physician is to do no
harm to the patient.
The Foundation of Law
• Law
- Body of rules of action or conduct prescribed by controlling authority; having
bound legal force
- Minimum standard of expected performance between individuals in a society
• Common Law
-Emanates from judicial decisions
• Statutory Law
-Arises from legislative bodies
• Administrative Law
-Flows from rules and regulations and decisions of administrative agencies
Fundamental Principles of Law
• - Concern for justice and fairness
• - Plasticity and change
• - Acts judged on universal standard of reasonable person
• - Doctrine of Individual Rights and Responsibilities
Misunderstandings about Nature of Law
• - Law is incomplete and always growing
• - There are areas of law where there are no previous legal rulings;
growth and change occurs
• - Wise to view the law as guide to proper behavior; mistake to
confuse legal and ethical behavior
The Lawsuit
• Plaintiff
-Person who brings an action in a court of law
• Defendant
-Person against whom an action is brought
• Prima facie
-legally sufficient to establish a case
Steps in a civil lawsuit:
•  Complaint
•  Answer
•  Discovery
•  Trial and Judgment
•  Appeal
Complaint
•  Plaintiff files complaint or petition with court that addresses
elements of prima facie case
•  Plaintiff has the burden of proof
•  Defendant has period of time in which complaint must be answered
Answer
•  Defendant three choices: (1) admit, (2) deny, or (3) plead ignorance
to each allegation in complaint
•  Filing an answer moves case into pre-trial phase
Discovery: fact-finding phase
•  Interrogatories
•  Document requests
•  Depositions
Trial and Judgment
•  Case tried before a judge only or before a judge and jury
•  During the trial, each side presents witnesses and evidence
collected is placed in record
•  Jury’s decisions not put into effect until judge makes a judgment
Appeal
•  Losing party may appeal a trial court decision to a higher court
Philippine judicial system consists of the following courts: Lower
Courts

• 1. Municipal Trial Courts and Municipal Circuit Trial Courts

• 2. Metropolitan Trial Courts and Municipal Trial Courts in Cities
• 3. Regional Trial Courts
• 4. Shari'a Courts
• 5. Court of Tax Appeals
• 6. Sandiganbayan
• 7. Court of Appeals
The Highest Court - Supreme Court
• The Supreme Court is the highest Court in the Philippines
Human Value Development
and the System of
Public Law
Value Development
•  As humans we are born with a series of undifferentiated potentials.
As an example, we have the capacity to learn a
• language, but the language is not prescribed by our genetic heritage.
In the same sense, humans have an innate
• ability to acquire ethical beliefs. But the value system we develop is
dependent on the cultural framework in which
• we live in.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
• According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, feelings of isolation result
in needs satisfying activities like joining a bowling
• team. Under most situations, our actions are explainable using this
model as we seem to satisfy a given set of needs. As
• each need level is satisfied the needs of the next level become the
dominant motivators of our actions. If hierarchy of
• needs is correct, an observer who could determine what level of need
you were operating on could predict the nature of
• your next actions.