Health and Social Management - Essay Example

? The essay enlightens the impact of a social worker’s values and ethics while making critical decisions in their professional and practical life. The main idea of the paper is to describe and analyze the consequences of social worker’s wrong decision making. Besides, the article provides a link between the social worker practices and management theories, ethical issues, management policies, and managerial styles. Dr Shipman case has been taken, in order to gain a proper understanding of the article. The case has provided supporting literature regarding social worker’s key concerns. Social worker Social work is a specialized field dedicated to the assurance of social welfare, social change, and social justice. The discipline works to improve the quality of life for each and every member of the society. Social workers are the people who assist and support people in their hour of difficulties (Prescott, 1992). The hardships and complication can take the form of child abuse, finding jobs, mental illness, handicaps and any sort of anti-social behavior. Social workers have focused their attention on areas like human development, community development, and developing social policy for the society (Knapp, 2008). We can find a number of cases where social and health mangers have not delivered their duties properly and the victims of social crime had to suffer. One of these cases is of “Dr Shipman”, which is story of a serial killer who had committed more than 400 murders but was left unsuspected. Shipman worked as a doctor and was involved in serious criminal offense throughout his professional career. He was involved in the serial killing for 24 years and was never proved guilty. The common reason found regarding the death of all his victims was the morphine overdose. Later, when Shipman was proved guilty, people were of the view why would he kill elderly ladies and what were the underlying reasons behind these killings. Moreover, whatsoever being the reason, the critical fact was the ability of this person to walk in open air even after killing 400 patients; this was the fault of the Shipman colleagues, senior doctors, nurses, and even the hospital management. At first, Shipman was fired by one of the hospitals who reported that he was involved in drugs intake. So, the hospital that later got him recruited, should have had performed the reference and background check properly despite of his good performance and experience. At least the hospital should have had kept a close eye on him in order to assure his behavior towards the organization (Gillies, 2003). Contextual Factors Dr. Shipman was more often considered to be a psychic serial killer, who killed his patients to gain satisfaction. Some psychologists were of the view that Shipman might want to refresh the scene of his mother dying whom he loved a lot; and others were of the view that he still had not gotten over of his mother’s death and wanted to take control of life and death. But the main reason which led to Shipman becoming a serial killer was an extremely pampered childhood, along with somewhat isolation from external environment, and the death of his mother who loved him the most. The death of Shipman’s mother was the leading cause of his behavior, because his mother always wanted him to be different from others and she was unnecessarily attached to him, and her sudden death made him feel lonely and depressed. This depression might have resulted in his psychic behavior. Besides his personal life depression, the other factors that aggravated his desire of killing were the lack of hospital management and peers attention. If Shipman had been stopped during his first few attempts of killing his patients, and from changing the medical records of those victims, the number would never have reached 400. Therefore, the negligence of hospital management, co-workers, nurses and even the inspectors led to the deaths of 400 patients (Davies, 2007). Management theories The loss of a parent is an extremely traumatic event, and may affect the child’s emotional status, behavior and values (Lieberman, 2003). This trauma may make it difficult for children to concentrate on schoolwork, which may lead to decreased or unsatisfying performance in school. Moreover, a deceased parent will no longer be able to pass on his or her norms and values; which in turn may cause surviving children lose the motivation to attend school and ethical practices. Lloyd and Blanc (1996) used population surveys with limited socio-economic controls from 7 African countries and found out that the loss of a parent does have an impact on psychological or physical behavior of the child (Dennis, 2008). Moreover, management plays a critical role in the performance of an organization. The management theories help establishing the benchmarks and standards for the organization and aligning theses standards with that of the employee performance. The System Approach management theory claims that everyone and everything of the organization is interrelated, that is, the decisions of one department will affect other departments as well, which in turn will affect the organization as a whole (Robbins & Coulter 2008, pp. 35-36). Interrelationship between Management theories and social worker’s practices At first glance, Shipman case is considered more of a psychic serial killer rather than negligence of the doctor and the hospital management. But when we go deep down into this case, it was all due to the carelessness of his colleagues, nurses and hospital management, which gave Shipman a chance at first place in the killings of his patient. Perhaps, System approach fits really well over here, as wrongdoings conducted by Shipman affected the overall reputation of the hospital and resulted in delineating the trust in doctors among the patients. If only the hospital would have kept a record of its doctors and patients on regular basis, the situation would not have been worsened to such an extent. Moreover, the inspectors involved in investigating the first few Shipman’s victims also portrayed due negligence, which gave Shipman a confidence boost. Henceforth, it is totally up to the hospital management discretion that how effectively it can manage its staff. The social worker’s behaviors are eventually translated to overall firms’ performance and its goodwill (Taylor & Nixon, 2004). A social worker’s main tasks and competency is to provide social justice and to enforce the social policies. Social worker has to be vigilant enough to analyze the wrong doings at a first glance (Liebler, & McConnell, 2004). The social worker should adapt the 7 habits of highly effective leader to make critical assessment of the situation (Covey, 2000). The most important thing that the social worker should keep in mind is “seek first to understand than to be understood”, which means that one should gain a complete understanding regarding the scenario before jumping to conclusions (Hjelm, 2009). Management styles There are basically two types of management styles based on the way the decisions are made; they are autocratic and beaurocratic management styles. Autocratic style leaders make all the decisions and direct their followers; on the contrary beaurocratic style leaders involve the staff and employees while making decisions (Lussier, & Achua, 2007). The management style followed in Shipman’s case is more of autocratic than beaurocratic, because Shipman was held authoritative, making decisions on his own, with no staff involvement. If the hospital management had a beaurocratic style, everyone would have been involved in decision making, and doctors would have been able to discuss the patient’s medical history with one another. Ethical issues Ethics is the growing concern for the organization due to the increased diversity in their workforce. Diversity has led to changing beliefs and perceptions of people over the same topic or issue. There are different ethical levels and each level has its own significance; however, there should be a proper alignment of all levels with one another. The levels are: individual, organizational, association, societal and international ethics (Hugman & Smith, 1995). Individual ethics, as the name indicates highlights that every individual has his own way of looking to a particular issue. Therefore, every individual has his or her own way of looking to a particular situation based on its culture, experience and perception. Similarly, organizational ethics basically involve the ethical code of conduct that is given by the organization to its employees. So, the individual has to maintain a balance between his personal and organizational ethics at the time of making decision. All the policies and the employees’ handbook give the employees a complete insight of the organizational ethics. Moreover, for a social worker societal ethics do matter, because for them, the core purpose of their job is to help society and community. Thus, the social worker should work in conformity with the societal ethics as well (Weiss 2008, pp.11). Importance of personal ethics for social worker’s Shipman case depicts the lack of ethics at individual, organizational, and societal level. The doctors take an oath at the time of their graduation that they will devote themselves in saving the patients’ lives. Being a doctor, Shipman should have performed his duties to save his patients’ lives rather than killing them. This was the individual level of ethics on Dr. Shipman’s part, which he neglected completely. Moreover, if the hospital had a strict ethical code of conduct for its staff, Shipman would never have killed his patients. The code of ethics provides rules of conduct and standards which help the social worker in sustaining good reputation within the organization. The social worker has three key issues of concerns and decision making regarding their ethical practices which are; value of social worker’s profession, we know that doctors are considered to hold the highest value and respect in terms of profession; ethical dilemmas in resolving issues; and decision making in terms of ethics (Reamer, 2006). Management style and social worker’s decision Social workers ensure the best environment for the society and its inhabitants. They provide the social policy which assures the social development. An effective feedback system in all the organizations involved in social work will increase employee and social worker’s commitment towards their profession (Sullivan, 2010). If the hospital in which Shipman worked had enforced beaurocratic style, where the doctors had to share their decision making regarding their patients with their colleagues, more doctors would have been informed regarding the health condition of the patients. Moreover, the hospital should have kept a record of the medicine prescribed and their quantity, and a proper check should have been maintained. We know doctors’ profession is all about helping their fellow beings, so if they are not delivering what is demanded by their profession, then they are useless for the society. Besides the social workers’ duties and responsibility, there is some responsibility on the part of the victims’ relative as well, who trust the doctor’s word blindfolded and did not utter a word against the doctor (McGrew, 1982). The inattention of most of the victims’ relatives boosted Shipman’s confidence in continuing to commit murders. Conclusion Everywhere in the world, the profession considered to be most respectable and valued is that of doctors. On secondary level comes the profession of all the people involved in social work. Besides this, we come across many depressing conducts on the part of social workers like the “Shipman case” and the very famous “Baby Peter case”. The essay has highlighted the importance of the decision making on the part of social workers and how their carelessness, misconduct, and wrong decision-making can ruin the lives of people linked to them. If only the hospital management, co-doctors and the nurses had kept a proper check over Dr. Shipman as well as the number of patients died under his treatment, the victims would never have reached the count of 400. Today, social workers have increased attention due to rising number of social evils, which is the result of unawareness on the part of individuals regarding social policies. Around the globe, social workers are promoting awareness campaigns in order to eliminate the chances of the cases like “Dr Shipman” and “Baby Peter” in the future. References Covey, S. R., 2000. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Running Press Davies, M., 2007. Medical self-regulation: crisis and change. Great Britain: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Dennis, D., 2008. Living, Dying, Grieving. USA: Jones & Bartlett Learning, Gillies, A., 2003. What makes a good healthcare system: comparisons, values, drivers, Cornwall: Radcliffe Publishing. Hjelm, J., 2009. The Dimensions of Health: Conceptual Models. USA; Jones & Bartlett Learning Hugman, R. and Smith, D., 1995.Ethical issues in social work. USA: Rutledge. Knapp, H., 2008. Introduction to Social Work Practice: A Practical Workbook. SAGE Publications Lieberman, A.F., 2003. Losing a parent to death in the early years: guidelines for the treatment of traumatic bereavement in infancy and early childhood. Zero to Three Press. Liebler, J.G. and McConnell, C.R., 2004. Management principles for health professionals. USA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Lloyd, Cynthia and Ann K. Blanc. 1996. “Children’s Schooling in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Population and Development Review 22(2):265-298. Lussier, R. N. and Achua, C.F., 2007, Effective Leadership. India: Cengage learning. McGrew, A.G., 1982. Decision making: approaches and analysis: a reader. Great Britain: Manchester University Press ND. Prescott, J., 1992. Career as a social worker. Institute for Career Research. Reamer, F. G., 2006, Social work values and ethics.USA: Columbia University Press. Robbins, S.P and Coulter, M., 2008, Management.9th ed. India: Pearson Education India. p. 35-36. Sullivan, T.O., 2010. Decision Making in Social Work, Palgrave Macmillan Taylor, G.R. and Nixon, L., 2004. Practical application of classroom management theories into strategies, USA: University Press of America. Weiss, J.W., 2008. Business Ethics: A Stakeholder and Issues Management Approach. 3rd ed. Canada: Cengage Learning. p11. Read More