Title: Relationships, Team works, and Communication Skills
Course: HCP 0796 Patient Care Technician > Section: Module 5

Introduction

Module 5 introduces the student to the concept how professionalism should be incorporated into one’s personal life as well. Your personal image can have a positive or negative effect on your patients and those around you. Included in this module are guidelines for appearance and grooming, personal habits, as well as language and grammar. Personal management skills are also important concepts to understand as they help you determine how well you manage your personal lifestyle which can at times be transposed into your professional life.

Objectives

In this module students will be able to:

- Define personal skills and explain how they affect your success as a health care worker.
- Define personal image and describe how your personal image affects the patients you serve.
- List five appearance and grooming factors that result in a professional image.
- Discuss stereotypes and how they impact first impressions.
- List three examples of annoying and troublesome personal habits.
- Describe how grammar and vocabulary impact your professional image.
- Discuss the importance of maintaining professionalism after hours.
- Define personal management skills and give three examples.
- Explain the importance of good time management skills and list five techniques to improve them.
- Explain the importance of good personal financial management skills and list five techniques to improve them.
- Explain the importance of good stress management skills and list five techniques to improve them.
- Describe the importance of critical-thinking and problem-solving skills and list the steps involved in problem solving.
- Identify one challenge unique to your profession and describe how information in this text can help you tackle that challenge.
- Define adaptive skills and explain why the ability to manage change is so important in healthcare today.

Pay attention throughout the course because each module builds upon the previous module in content and the student should be able to demonstrate this knowledge in the clinical setting.

Readings

Chapter 4 Professionalism and Your Personal Life – introduces you to the ways in which your personal life and professional life are intertwined. From personal image to personal management health care workers must understand how the career they chose affects who they are and must be as a person. We will discuss the appropriate appearance needed in healthcare as well as the language and grammar issues associated with professionalism. Personal management skills such as time management, personal financial management, and stress management will be evaluated for the implementation proper techniques in each. Problem solving as well as critical thinking will also be examined to allow the student to grasp the concept of being able to solve problems objectively by using critical thinking skills. Finally we will discuss effective ways to handle change as this is an essential skill in the fluid and dynamic health care system we have today.

Discussion Board 7 will help you to utilize the information you have learned in this modules required readings to effectively handle personal choices that can have a significant impact on your professionalism. It will also allow you a chance to demonstrate effective decision making managing your personal finances as they result to your job. This will be further stressed in the questions of Assignment 2.

Finally, in Discussion Board 8 you will have an opportunity to use the unit readings to evaluate situations that have occurred in your own life. You will have the chance to explore your decisions and determine whether they could have been handled differently to produce a more positive or favorable outcome. This will be further implemented into the questions of Assignment 3.

Assignment 4 will assist the student to evaluate how well they currently manage their time in a three day period. By evaluating how you utilized every minute of the day, you can then find ways to manage the time in a way that will be more productive and fulfilling.

Instructions

- Complete Readings
- Complete Discussion 7
- Complete Assignment 2
- Complete Discussion 8
- Complete Assignment 3
- Complete Assignment  4
- Complete Exam 2
- Post scheduled clinical (practicums) evaluations in Clinical discussion