CPs/OPs As Professionals

Hudaa

Description

Title:

CPs/OPs As Professionals

Creator:

Hudaa

Date:

10/12/2006

Text:

Dear List,

I have been an amputee for almost 26 years. I have also been fortunate
enough enough to be a model at Century College Prosthetic School for the
past 25 years.

I have had both horrible and superb CPs and students make my sockets and
harnesses, both for my own use and as a model. As a retired health care
professional (Nuclear Medicine Technologist since 1967), I find your
discussion of what constitutes a professional in your field a story that
has been ongoing in health care since before OSHA began it's regulations
about 1970. The insurance companies then began to regulate what would
constitute appropriate patient care, nurses began getting more education in
order to get more money, and other professionals did the same. The more
letters after your name has become the standard of how much income you could
earn. Hospitals are now marketing their services to attract more patients.
The increasing requirement of more education and now licensure does NOT make
a professional, in my view.

A true professional is one who does his very best for his/her patient.
Pieces of paper are not the requirement. A love of the service you provide
is.

I am very aware that in the real world, you are facing more and more
regulations and having to spend more and more time and money fulfilling
those requirements. I also know of the difficult fight now arising to keep
independent providers from being gobbled up by large corporate interests.

Please, please, please stop the bickering and put your energy into what is
necessary to build your profession into the respected field that it should
be. The infighting and name calling does no one any good except those who
want to push you to the side for their own benefit, eg, physical therapists.
This should not be a field in which your income is the primary reason to be
a CP or OP.

I admit that I am not an accomplished writer, but I do have some knowledge
of what constitutes a true professional. And as an amputee, I have great
interest in keeping you from disappearing as providers of my need to live a
comfortable and productive life.

Hudaa Nielsen, Amputee

                          

Citation

Hudaa, “CPs/OPs As Professionals,” Digital Resource Foundation for Orthotics and Prosthetics, accessed November 24, 2024, https://library.drfop.org/items/show/227402.