Question

We have all had visits at medical facilities or heard stories of visits wherein the staff were standoffish, rude or seemingly unfriendly. Have you ever thought that this was because the healthcare professional was “impaired”?

Define the term “impaired professional”.

What are some risks to “professional competence” and “performance”?

Discuss several examples of physical impairment. Do you think any of these examples affected your medical treatment when you were presented with an “impaired professional”?

(Risk management)

Answer 1

Professional Impairment is the inability to practice or carry out the responsibilities according to some standards due to some physical or mental difficulty and these include substance abuse, illness and dissability. This is a serious problem of professional life. The impaired professional causes harm to themselves and to others. Professional impairment may seriously affect the interaction between co-workers, patients and their families. Being professionally impaired is certainly different from being incompetent. An incompetent professional will be having limited potentional and knowledge to function in a particular field. A patinet can definitely be incompetent without being impaired. Professional impairment disrupts the competence in a profession. They may be poorly motivated and they will have the inability to face silence or aggressive behaviour in a client. These people will sufer from lower self esteem. The following are the common risk factors of work place imbalance

• Drug dependance
• High stress environment
• Limited awareness about substance abuse disorders.
• Tiredness
• Overtime job
• Low job satisfaction