Читать книгу Fundamentals of Person-Centred Healthcare Practice - Группа авторов - Страница 30

Having some core understandings of persons and personhood is important as you develop your healthcare practice. Knowing who you are as a person, what is important to you, what core values you hold and how these are shaped and developed through different cultures are key considerations as you develop your person‐centred practice. As you move through this book and in your day‐to‐day work, you will read about and hear different ways of understanding how persons and personhood are articulated by you and others, such as person‐centred care, family‐centred care, woman‐centred care, person‐centred practice, person‐centred culture – to name a few! The ways in which these terms are used reflect different understandings of or engagement with personhood.

Think about ‘person‐centred care’, for example – what does that term say about personhood? Does it reflect a particular set of beliefs and values? We would argue that person‐centred care privileges the personhood of the patient/service user over that of the practitioner, i.e. the focus is on ensuring that ‘what matters’ to the patient is of primary importance. What might the implications of that be for a nurse or physiotherapist, for example? If the nurse or physiotherapist were in a care situation where their values were compromised, does that matter? We would argue that a focus on person‐centred culture in healthcare, for example, ensures that the personhood of all persons is equally valued and paid attention to. Drawing on Smith's analysis, different cultural contexts shape how personhood is realised. The Person‐centred Practice Framework pays attention to these cultural issues and places something like ‘person‐centred care’ in a broader social context. This focus will be demonstrated in other chapters and in the different ways in which the framework is applied in contrasting contexts.