Ethics for the healthcare provider

Ethics for Health Care Provider

The foundations of traditional medicine are based on the idea that all people need health care. Without such care the whole of the community of man becomes weaker and more challenged to live whole and healthy. As a part of the transformation of an individual into a practitioner of Oriental Medicine, in my case an acupuncturist is the development of a full understanding of the need to balance the fundamentals of a clinical practice, as well as serving the community yin the best and most healthy way possible. In the United States, there is a current and enduring health care crisis, in part due to the fact that medical care is frequently not provided to a large part of the population.

There are many reasons why there is an underserved population, though the most common reason is due to the fact that they cannot pay for care. The growth of "complementary" medical care, such as many options for care provided by traditional healers and practitioners of oriental medicine is in fact in part due to the rising costs of allopathic medicine and the rising cost of insurances that pay for such care. Even the mainstream medical industry is finally taking notice of "alternative" care, as the validity of such care is reexamined daily by the medical scientific community to provide more cost effective and sorely needed care for what the mainstream thinks of as intractable conditions.

Acupuncture is therefore becoming a big business, in high demand in many areas. Seeking to become an acupuncturist, was of course driven by both my desire to serve and help through this ancient healing art as well as to earn a living. To serve an underserved population is therefore a key factor in my desire to help as many people as I can with my growing skill and must therefore remain paramount in my desire to balance the divergent goals of needing to profit from such work as well as to serve those who need it most, the poor. The ethical dilemma will then be solved rationally by taking steps to serve as many people as possible, both to build awareness for the healing powers of the practice, and therefore grow my business and to serve those in greatest need.

It is for this reason that the only way that I can see to further both goals is to develop a system of sliding scale payment for those in need, without the means to pay for care all at once and also to offer my services, for five to ten hours per week as a volunteer at a local clinic that provides care to the underserved people in my community. In so doing I will be both building awareness for the power of the art in the medical community and seeking to better serve the whole of the community in which I live. The health of the whole community is therefore aided by my actions.