From bold-faced lies to misrepresentation – facts that aren’t facts, withholding information, skirting the code of ethics, and shades of truth – honesty and the advocacy business have been on my mind. I’m eager to hear your opinion on the subject, too.
My thought process was actually triggered by something that has nothing to do with advocacy at all, something that seems relatively innocuous, but then, maybe not-so-innocuous at all: the purchase of a 5-lb bag of sugar to bake holiday cookies last December. Now a 5-lb bag of sugar has always been a 5-lb bag of sugar and has yielded a certain number of batches of cookies. I’ve been buying 5-lb bags of sugar all my baking life, so I grabbed the bag off the shelf at the store as I do every December, knowing that cookie baking was in my near future.
Except that this time, that 5-lb bag of sugar was (you guessed it) only 4 lbs! It didn’t cost any less, but it had 20% less sugar in the bag. Yes, it was labeled correctly, and no, I had not read it carefully enough. But that is SO FAR beside the point. Old habits die hard.
So now? I will never trust that store again when it comes to purchasing sugar – or anything else that I have trusted to be of a certain size. Sugar isn’t the only problem. Many other kinds of foods, including cereal, frozen vegetables, orange juice, pre-packaged produce and meats. A pound is still a pound, but a package that has always been a certain size is rarely that size anymore. Fool us all! That cummupence got me to thinking about other places in life where things are not what they seem to be. For example – the healthcare system. For people of a certain age or older, the healthcare system was always accessible and available, provided what we needed when we needed it, through kindly and knowledgeable providers, and at an affordable price (or no cost at all.)
But now, in 2016, that healthcare system no longer exists – not in the US anyway. Period. No patient accessing the American healthcare system can trust any portion of it anymore. We expect 5 lbs of sweet care, and we’re not getting it…
We’ve been fooled once, twice – and now it seems – will continue to be fooled forever…
… which is why people need patient advocates. So, in a way, that “Fool Me Once” led to a new profession in which we are all keenly interested. While we love the work we do, it is sad, in a way, to think about why we are called upon to do it. People can’t trust the system, so they hire us to reclaim the honesty.
My thought process then turned to patient advocates ourselves, and the foundation upon which we are building our profession. Recently I have had conversations with advocates that suggest to me that our foundation is being chipped away at by some practicing advocates. Among us are people who are, sometimes innocently (sometimes not-so-innocently) violating the honesty, ethical standards, and expectations our profession demands, even if we have no formal way to demand them yet.
And that’s a problem. We’re very new, and we have only one chance to make that positive, ethical, above-reproach first impression. When some advocates aren’t on board with that approach, it becomes a problem for the entire group of us – those of us who are trying to right the healthcare system wrongs described above.
I’m going to provide two examples – one this week, and one soon – and some of you will see yourselves. I fully expect that some of you will be appalled, possibly upset with me, because you’ve not thought of these as violations or misrepresentations. Some of you innocently don’t realize these transgressions; but now, as of reading this post, you are on notice – now you will.
Whether or not you’ve violated your ethics intentionally or innocently, please look at this not as judgment, but as a time for correction. Continue Reading →
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