Ethics for Healthcare Professionals for Paramedics, Chinese Medicine Practitioners and all other Health Practitioners facing a Council or Board investigation, complaint or allegation

The decision, in order and in plain words; the principle engaged and the principle it was in tension with, named by you from your own code; the effect on the patient in the patient’s terms; what you have done since, with dates and someone else’s confirmation; and what would be different — without the system, the patient or the pressure offered as the reason. The course sets weak and strong reflections to the same decision side by side.

It is one dated item. The rest is CPD targeted to the principle, supervision with written reports, an audit of consent or records repeated after an interval, a health plan where health is part of it, and ethical reflection that cites your code. No provider is accredited by any Council or Board, and no course decides a matter. What every authority, a Committee and the Tribunal weigh is dated, targeted remediation with reflection that engages your own code — and this course is written to the ground the eighteen codes share, with the Medical, Nursing, Pharmacy and Dental Council documents read in their own words, so the connection to yours is plain. The Tribunal has itself ordered education in ethics, boundaries and consent as part of a penalty. Check the wording of any direction with your indemnity insurer, union, professional association or lawyer before you rely on it.

Yes — before anything goes to your Council or Board, a reviewer, a Professional Conduct Committee, the Tribunal or your employer. Your indemnity insurer, your union or professional association, or a lawyer should read a response before it is sent. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and no course determines the outcome of a matter.

All other health practitioners — paramedics, occupational therapists, podiatrists, dietitians, medical radiation technologists, medical laboratory scientists, anaesthetic technicians, Chinese medicine practitioners and psychotherapists — and any registered practitioner whose profession has no course of its own on this site. The Act requires every responsible authority to set its own standards of ethical conduct, and the course is written to the ground those standards share, so you cite your own code; the course shows you where in it the principle you need is written.

In the authorities’ usage, an ethics concern is about a decision — what you chose to do or not do when principles pulled against each other — and a professionalism concern is about behaviour. They overlap, and both travel the conduct route to a Professional Conduct Committee. The response to an ethics allegation names the principle and describes the decision; the course is written for that response, and the Professionalism course for the other.

Said plainly, it is the beginning of insight; offered as a defence, it is read as its absence. Many ethics notifications are about practitioners who did not see the decision as ethical while they were making it, and every authority reads for whether they can see it now: the principle named, the competing principle acknowledged, the effect on the patient described. The course teaches that account.

It is probity, and every New Zealand code makes honesty a condition of registration. A record that says what did not happen, a certificate signed unseen, a claim for a service not given: the Tribunal has cancelled registrations for each across the professions, where a clinical error would not have ended one. The course gives honesty in documentation, certificates and claims a section of its own.

By kind, by who was responsible, and by when it was noticed. The course treats sexual, financial, emotional and digital boundaries separately because the authorities do, and every authority places the responsibility with the practitioner whoever began the drift — with a patient or with a colleague. A practitioner who noticed the drift, ended it, recorded it and sought advice is read very differently from one who was found.

It engages non-maleficence where a patient was put at risk, and every authority has a health route for the condition itself, separate from the conduct route. A condition declared and managed is dealt with under that route with support; a condition concealed when it should have been declared, or harm caused while impaired, engages both. The course covers what a credible response to a health-related notification contains.

Through justice and autonomy. Cultural competence is a standard every authority must set under the Act, and a decision that excluded whānau, ignored tikanga or offered a Māori patient less is an ethics notification to each of them. The course reads the principles through Te Tiriti rather than adding it as a section at the end.

This course is about reasoning: the five principles, consent, confidentiality, boundaries as an ethical question, and ethical reflection in a portfolio or at a hearing. The Professionalism course is about conduct: behaviour, values and accountability, the four attributes a notification tests, the six triggers for regulator concern, and CPD, audit and supervision as evidence of changed behaviour.

The course is 2 CPD hours, self-paced, with twelve months’ access from purchase. The certificate is issued on completion, dated, with the course title and the CPD hours, for your recertification, a competence programme or a response.