Shannon Leslie byrne
Providing quality patient care requires maintaining a high level of medical expertise and professional behavior. Key aspects of good medical practice include:
- Recognizing and working within your competence and scope of practice.
- Ensuring you possess the necessary knowledge and skills to deliver safe clinical care.
- Keeping comprehensive records.
- Weighing the benefits and risks in all clinical management decisions.
- Communicating effectively with patients.
- Offering treatment options based on the best available evidence.
- Recommending treatments only when there's a clear therapeutic need, a clinically recognized treatment, and a reasonable expectation of clinical efficacy and benefit for the patient.
- Informing patients when your personal opinion differs from the profession's commonly accepted views.
- Taking steps to relieve patient symptoms and distress, whether or not a cure is possible.
- Supporting the patient's right to seek a second opinion.
- Consulting and taking advice from colleagues when appropriate.
- Making responsible and effective use of available resources.
- Encouraging patients to engage in and take responsibility for managing their health, and supporting them in this effort.
- Ensuring your personal views do not negatively impact the care you provide or the referrals you make.
Shared decision-making in healthcare is a joint responsibility between the doctor and the patient. Patients may choose to involve their family, caregiver, or others in the decision-making process.