 Hello, good morning. Andrea here with dental oil tutoring. Let's do some study tips study help on dental ethics. So let's talk about ethics. What is it and what basically do you have to know so ethics as a dental professional basically means we have a moral conduct so we need to know the difference between right or wrong. And if there's ever any confusion well we have to just really refer back to our code of ethics and we do have categories we have codes, we have principles which is what I'm going to talk to you guys in a little bit. Basically, as a general rule you have to think that we have standards, and there are, you know, minimum, minimal standards by law that we have to follow as an example. We can't be using dirty instruments on a patient I mean that's a horrible example we never would, but those are minimum standards. Okay, and then we have to think about things like, Oh, are we going to bill somebody who has insurance more than if somebody who doesn't have insurance. All of that refers to code of ethics we might be wanting to try to help out somebody who doesn't have insurance, but is that the standard of code of ethics no so let's talk about that a little bit. So you do have to know certain principles for our code of ethics you have sources you have principles you have categories. Some basic principles are things like autonomy. That basically means your patient people have a choice to do what they want they have that autonomy meaning if they don't want x-rays taken, they have that prerogative to say no, and we need to, they have to be or sorry we have to be okay with that. But it's in our code of ethics to make sure they understand why radiographs are so important, but they're allowed to say no so do you see how that can kind of overlap a little bit, and then there's another one do no harm. That's non Maleficent so basically not doing harm we have to be a professional at all times, not causing harm not something as simple as not using dirty instruments, but things like we always need to think about the best interest of the patient, even if the patient thinks otherwise. An example might be somebody comes in with severe gum disease, they need teeth taken out they have an abscess there's an infection traveling through their body but they want teeth whining they insist on teeth whining they don't care about the other stuff. Our code of ethics is we cannot do harm us performing teeth whining and ignoring the other stuff is not within our code of ethics. The patient is yelling at us they're getting upset because we're not doing teeth whining well we need to tell them. We have a code of ethics, us just simply doing the teeth whining for you of course we want your money, but we're thinking about you first we cannot do that we can do the teeth, the teeth whining right after we fix that infection. That's what we need to take care of that first so that's do no harm, and then promotion of well being. This refers to beneficence that's always hard for me to say beneficence might even say that properly please correct me in the comments if I'm wrong. You're all probably laughing. So basically we need to promote well being meaning we need to volunteer our time that's one way of doing that. Just by simply not car not causing harm to a patient we want to do so much more than that we want to help others. We want to do whatever we can as a clinician and in our community so we want to be the best dental professional we can to our patients but let's take it a step further and promote well being by volunteering so that's what that means. Justice is another thing so we need to treat people fairly, we need to give them what they deserve a fine line of this could be even if your patient comes in, they're extremely rude, they're having a tough time. We need to remember we need to treat people fairly so they might be super rude because they're very fearful they're very anxious of their dental appointment today we still need to treat them with respect and keep that in mind they're probably just extremely fearful. Of course that can only go so far. If the patient becomes, you know, they're going crazy yelling screaming they might be borderline abusive well that's when we have to nip that in the bud but if they're just simply being rude, I mean, not simply but if they're saying things you agree with they're being rude we need to remember that they're probably just extremely nervous. They still deserve the same amount of care as somebody who isn't nervous and is being super nice I know it sounds funny but that's part of our code of ethics. The next one I want to talk to you about is is a veracity veracity. So this involves telling the truth, we need to tell the truth and this could result in. We need to tell the patient what's true about their condition, we can't just simply say yeah you have severe gum disease but don't worry about it just come in every three months for your cleaning. We need to tell the truth we need to explain gum disease to them by showing pictures showing them the x-rays explaining things to them over and over until they understand so they're not just simply sweeping it under the rug. And that we have to tell them the truth even if let's say they don't want to hear it. I do have patients come to me and say you know what I know my teeth are bad I know they're horrible. I don't want to hear it I'm just here clean my teeth. That doesn't really happen to me in my own practice now as a mobile dental hygienist, but that used to happen to me in the dental office all the time. I feel like it was because the front desk was kind of like a badgering them to come in to get their teeth cleaned and they got sick of it I don't know maybe, but I, I'm still legally and I need to as part of my code of ethics. I can't just sweep things under the rug I have to tell them what's going on. Another thing when it comes to telling the truth and I've said this before probably in previous study sessions is for kids we need to tell kids the truth. And not say to them that something's not going to hurt when let's say we're giving them a needle and we know it's going to hurt we shouldn't lie to them. Maybe just don't mention anything about hurting that's what I prefer that's my philosophy is I'm just not going to mention it. If a child asks me I'm going to be honest with them but I'm also not going to go crazy and say oh my God it's going to hurt so bad. I'd say something like you're going to feel a pitch or something like that thankfully in my own practice now I don't have to give needles because that was always hard for me to have to explain to a little one about the needles coming so I'm glad that I don't have to do that. Another part of our code of ethics is confidentiality this is a principle that we have. We need to keep our clients information confidential. I feel like that's one of the easiest things to do because who am I going to talk to about my client. I'm not going to go home and tell everybody I know about that client. I'm not going to tell my next client about the client I saw before it just doesn't happen. We need to keep our health care professionals things need to be confidential. But then we also talk, we need to talk about privacy, the health information portability and accountability act HIPAA that is privacy so we need to keep everything private. We need to safely secure their chart so that not just anybody can see it their health information is private that kind of thing. So those are the principles okay if you guys want to learn more absolutely comment below ask me any questions, and I look forward to talking to you guys and the next one.