The NATA Professional Responsibility in Athletic Training (PRAT) Committee received support from the NATA Board of Directors to identify shared professional values (PV) among NATA members. To date, unlike many other healthcare professional organizations, members of the NATA do not have shared PV. Our members must abide by and be mindful of the numerous legal, ethical and regulatory (LER) statutes, principles, and rules of professional practice in athletic training (aka, compliance orientation). While this form of orientation serves a critical purpose for NATA members, the PRAT proposes the addition of a values orientation approach, which supports and simplifies the necessary, but countless professional documents.
Asking for Help Isn't Taboo
In a world where we are all constantly “connected” to each other, sometimes it can really feel like we are completely alone. Various settings in athletic training may leave some of us in a team of one, feeling like we have no support from others in our profession. It is important to know that if you are feeling secluded and unsupported, there are ways to reach out for a helping hand and to get mental support.
What Does Whistleblowing Mean to You?
Clinical care that opposes patients’ best interests is concerning and problematic. Unethical or unlawful practices compromise patient care and negatively impacts the athletic training profession, both of which violate the NATA Code of Ethics. As we uphold the Code of Ethics and the BOC Standards of Professional Practice, we are agreeing to report damaging practice in the interest of our patients and to maintain the social contract athletic trainers have with society. In this contract, in exchange for the privilege of providing health care to patients, we uphold public trust through professional and competent practice and policing clinicians who go against the standard of care.
Cultural Competency
Race, ethnicity, religion, language, foods, belief system and other characteristics often define culture. Yet culture can be viewed on a continuum, meaning no one event, group of people, or identifier defines any one culture. No person has the exact same experience as another, therefore as healthcare professionals we should be mindful that cultures, histories, and experiences vary in meaning for each individual. Cultural competence is a life-long process, which one commits to daily. It is not an event and does not result from a few encounters with people outside of our own identified culture. Cultural competency requires awareness, knowledge, skill, encounters and desire or A.S.K.E.D. Responding to questions in each component can be a means for working towards cultural competency.
Accountability and Transparency
Have you ever noticed that in sports and athletic medicine, a catastrophic event is frequently required to prompt change? How paradoxical that we heavily emphasize prevention yet often fail to implement appropriate measures for minimizing risk. For example, how can we truly state that our interventions prevent injury if we aren’t even counting exposures and tracking injury rates over time? Instead, we are frequently forced to respond reactively which in turn, often creates more of a mess.
Sound Practices for Protecting your Online Reputation
The latest data from GlobalWebIndex1 shows that the average internet user in the U.S. spends approximately 6 hours each day using internet-powered devices and services – that’s roughly 1/3 of our waking lives. Two of the 6 hours is allocated to social media (SM). The adoption and diffusion of SM has increased at a rate unparalleled by any prior form of media. This is the new wired world: always connected, always communicating, always multitasking. The benefits from SM far exceed the disadvantages. While the NATA Code of Ethics establishes important external guides, ethical decisions about social media use stem from informed individuals with developed ethical thinking.
Protect Your Patients & Yourself
It's a mean world out there, and as much as we want to always believe that our athletes and patients are so happy WE are caring for them, if their return to play or life doesn't go as they expected it to, we can easily become a victim of legal problems.
Kornblau and Starling, in "Ethics in Rehabilitation", remind us to “protect yourself” and list some steps we all should review:
- Put your licensure law on your desk and read it frequently: It’s easy to think we're always doing the right thing.
- Report ethical and legal violations to the licensure board: It's not "tattling" - It's protecting the integrity of our profession.
- Open your eyes: If it doesn't seem right it usually isn't.
- Follow the 4 "C's": Cover yourself with Contemporaneous, Complete and Comprehensive documentation. If it's not on paper it didn't happen.
- Keep your athletes interest above all else: Do the right thing.
- Understand the laws and rules that govern our world: JAHCO, Medicare and HIPPA give us important boundaries. Know them.
And finally, my personal advice: retain professional liability insurance. Your employer will protect you, but only if you do what you are legally allowed by your licensure and state laws. Nobody protects you like you.