Podiatrist Professional Identity

Every profession has its professional identity, professional identity is a complex concept which can reflect self-consciousness under a certain working environment. To explore one’s professional identity, need to learn how to relate personal values and the values of professions, and familiar with the principle of professional practice or the rules and to understand ethical issues and code of practice clearly (Harris & White, 2013). In the health care system, one’s professional identity interacts with patients and associate with other practitioners. In the domain of podiatry, which is considered as secondary or tertiary healthcare system, the podiatrist will treat clients with different issues on their lower limbs and feet. The podiatrist will

Every profession needs to undertake by a group, none of them has only one member, therefore, none of the profession is working alone (Davis, 2008). According to the research, teamwork is a key part of success in high-quality health care (Campbell et al., 2001), team member associated mutually to improve the quality and effectiveness of health care. As a podiatrist, the professional area includes diagnosis of the issue, treatment of the issue, rehabilitation of the issue and as well as health promotion of foot diseases (Australian Podiatry Association, 2017). In many cases, podiatrists cannot work alone in the whole process, they need to work with other health field practitioner together to solve the issue with a better outcome. For example, Albert, a 46-year-old man who suffered type 1 diabetes mellitus since childhood and he went to the hospital for neurovascular ulceration treatment on the right heel. Because, this a complex medical case, it needs to undertake by a multidiscipline team. The medical treatment group of Albert includes two podiatrist, ward nurses, a physiotherapist, occupational therapist, doctors and diabetic nurse specialist (Stanley & Turner, 2004). Each of this team member played a significant role in teamwork, each individual has his responsibility to care the client and working industriously to achieve a success under safe and

Ethics is another boundary of professional practice, unlike law which is more concretization, ethics is more abstract, different people have different judgement criteria, but most of the criteria is based on human rights and morals. The health professional works interact with different peoples, and the relationship between profession and clients need to keep at an appropriate distance. If professional practitioner keeps some distance with patients, the patient would feel alienation, and it will affect communication between the practitioner and the client. But if the relationship is too close, professional may disrespect client and easily cross the boundary of ethics. According to the statistics, unlike only a few people are well acquainted with the law, most physicians and nurse have the knowledge of ethics, and they acquire this knowledge during training and experience in working (Hariharan, Jonnalagadda, Walrond, & Moseley, 2006). Also, compare the research done by Roy Morgan (2015), health professions are mostly ethical. These all information indicate that in the healthcare system, medical staff, nurse or other practitioners were aware that the importance of the ethical problem in the practice. As a podiatrist, practice in the urban area or rural area can face the different challenge of ethical problems. For example, there is an ethical dilemma due to the moral distress