CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
A patient is any recipient of health care services. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment 1. Being a patient does not take away one’s right to privacy and comfort at the hospital during treatment. In fact, due to the physical, emotional, and mental state of patients, it is very important that their privacy is respected, and their comfort guaranteed.
Therefore, every examination or treatment in the hospital should be in the patient’s best interest, because the patient is the main reason for the existence of the hospital. Training of new health care professionals such as doctors, radiographers, nurses, etc, is part of the process of improving health care delivery, which in turn is beneficial to the patient. Therefore, in order to train health care providers and also improve on the standard of health care delivery, real life situations are required. This is where the patient becomes very important in the education and training of health care professionals.
However, the patient’s rights to privacy should be respected and it is ethical for patient’s consent to be sought before they are used for teaching or demonstration for students. On the contrary, patients are sometimes not aware of any teaching activities Students are now becoming actively involved in patient care in order to gain clinical experience. This seems to be a symbiotic relationship because as students gain more clinical experience, patient care is enhanced due to combined efforts from both the health care professional and the students. Students of Radiography require high level scientific training for proper understanding and efficient application of the modern technology involved in the discharge of health care. Therefore, clinical postings for students of radiography require that they visit teaching hospitals regularly, and are present in the examination room in order to gain practical knowledge of how radiographic procedures are carried out.
Student presence, and furthermore, participation in carrying out radiographic procedures are very important to their training as professional radiographers.