2006 Student Ethics Essay Award - 3rd Place

Ethics: Holding the Person Paramount

By Sarah Reid
University of North Carolina-Greensboro
NSSLHA Chapter Advisor: Perry Flynn

The very nature of our humanity requires that we recognize our mutual dependence. As John Donne remarked in his famous meditation, "No man is an island, entire of itself...I am involved in mankind." It is likely this very involvement that prompted many of us to elect our vocation in disciplines involving speech, language, and hearing. The importance of declaring our mission of service together is this: we must hold one another accountable to embracing our humanity as we ought. The first principle in the American Speech-Language Hearing Association's Code of Ethics dictates one manner in which this is manifest: that "individuals shall honor their responsibility to hold paramount the welfare of persons they serve professionally."

Human life possesses inherent worth, value, and dignity. Worth is not determined by societal value, but rather is intrinsic to human nature. Therefore, no person is beyond the scope of the life that we must respect and to which we must be committed. As professionals, our service to others must be motivated by the value ascribed to persons' lives. Our commitment to life and human well-being impels us to focus primarily on the persons in need of our services with the supreme goal of their restoration and progress. This necessitates being sensitive to the circumstances and needs of those whom we serve by acting rightly and by making informed decisions, with compassion and wisdom, in a manner free of condescension. Our aim should be to free those we serve from the adverse effects of their speech, language, or hearing difficulties, that they would be freed for the purpose of living abundant lives. 

Who we are dictates how we live and how we are to live. As individual professionals, our personal worldviews and ideologies will inform the manner in which we interpret, implement, and abide by the Code of Ethics. For me, the implications comprise, in part, proper stewardship of my knowledge and skills. I am obligated to such stewardship because I recognize that the gifts and abilities I have been given, including the opportunity to gain expertise in the areas of speech and language, are intended for the edification of others. The covenant to which I hold myself includes acting in the interests of those I serve by helping them to attain their highest level of functioning. It also encompasses advocating for the provision of just treatment, particularly for those who are poor, uninsured, disabled, chronically ill, or aged, and are therefore most vulnerable. Persons in need are those who I am to actively sustain in accordance with seeking their well-being. Adopting a proactive approach is another facet of my ethical obligation: to anticipate probable difficulties and educate about prevention. As an individual professional, I have the freedom to act as I deem best in specific situations. However, in my professional life I am not an island, either, and therefore part of acting ethically resides in interaction with other professionals.

In this sense, ethics must be carried out not only individually, but corporately. As a profession, we have a communal responsibility for the welfare of those we serve. In order to practice rational, evidence-based treatment for optimal service delivery, contributions from an interdependent professional community are essential. This entails the collaboration of professionals who are individually dedicated to utilizing and developing their vocational strengths. By using resources effectively, such as peer-reviewed articles published in professional journals, we can share reliable and objective information gained through rigorous, experimentally-designed clinical studies. This is relevant for upholding the welfare of persons we serve as it helps us to discern how we may provide the best treatment available. Some of this objective data may also be useful to provide to policy-makers in advocating for reforms that will directly impact the persons we serve. Furthermore, advancing the general health of the public in the areas of speech, language, and hearing will be most efficacious when it is a cooperative effort, both among those professionals in our discipline and with related professionals from other disciplines. Finally, we can hold paramount the welfare of those we serve as a profession by being accountable to one another in our decisions, actions, and expenditures of the resources available to us.

The American Speech-Language Hearing Association represents a coalition of creatively-minded professionals who belong to a field in which clinicians and researchers endeavor to improve the lives of others. This noble aim compels us to hold each other accountable to provision of services of the highest standards, to collaborate with one another, to act in the interest of others, and to consider others with utmost regard. In so doing, persons who we serve professionally become those whose welfare we hold paramount.

ASHA Announces 2007 Student Ethics Essay Award (SEEA) Competition
See the 2007 essay topic and submission information.