What does it mean to act with academic integrity as a student health practitioner? This question I struggled with. I had many questions when I began foundations for professional health practice. As the course progressed my many questions were answered and I was taught why acting with academic integrity was so important and how to be an effective health care professional.
Academic integrity has many components. However, my own personal understanding of it is that if you use someone else’s work you must give credit to them. Why do we have to reference? I thought that if we only use an author’s idea it is technically our own work. Referencing and academic integrity was a major aspect of the communication skills learning outcome. To be an effective health professional you must be able to communicate your ideas to your peers and clients.
I can communicate effectively, but foundations enabled me to eliminate my weaknesses in referencing. Having classes on referencing was also a wonderful experience because it always lost me marks in assignments and I was glad to learn how to do it properly. In our student code of conduct it is our responsibility to ensure that we reference correctly. I understand the importance of referencing more now. When an author publishes their work they trust that if we use it we will honour them but it is also our responsibility as student practitioners to maintain this respect. Without this code, academic writing will become invalid. After reflecting on how hard I worked on my essay I now understand why academic integrity is so important. I would feel cheated if someone used my ideas and presented them as their own.
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The learning outcomes, which were the most interesting, were learning about Australian and international health systems and the key elements of ethics in a health context. They are important because it helps understand the nature of our professions better. When reflecting I tried to determine why did this learning outcome excite me more than the others? I decided to study Nursing was because I would be in a profession known for its strong ethical standing.
A weakness of mine was my lack of knowledge of other people’s pain and how this related to ethics. For example, when we did the case study of Max Bernstein and his grief over the death of his wife I felt he was being difficult when he wanted his wife to be moved. However, as we continued my opinion changed. Learning ethics and how to deliver the best care for our patients is important to being a successful health professional. Due to foundations teaching us this concept I feel my self-questioning how can I be the best Nurse and deliver the best care?
Concluding my time in foundations, I believe I understand the importance of acting with academic integrity as a student practitioner. Without academic integrity, the concept of academic writing will be invalid. Scholars will not want to publish their work because their hard work will not be acknowledged and the validity of the information will decrease.
