Ethical drag is a terrible thing.
My friend and colleague, Shaun Sellars, who works with us at the practice as our lead general dental practitioner, holds a Master's degree in dental ethics and lectures on our courses on ethical matters.
Shaun is a person to describe and discuss the concept of ethical drift.
Let me give you a little example of how ethical drift can work in your life or in your practising life or whatever…
It basically starts where you're on the straight and narrow, and then you drift. You decide that it's ok to do a little thing, which is, in itself, not rule-breaking or against your values; it's just a little bit closer to the edge. Then you do it again, stretch a little bit further. Still, you don't notice really, cos you're just stretching and evolving, you're not jumping, and then you stretch again and then again, and then you're outside your guard rails. Maybe you didn't even notice, and certainly your cognitive distance justifies the fact that it's ok to be here because perhaps your guards were too tight in the first place, and then you're gone.
It takes an extraordinary amount of self-awareness not to fall into these traps for all of us, but also an extraordinary amount of openness to give people permission to tell you if you've gone too far.
An area of my life, which is a real metaphor for this, is my company Amex card (and one other credit card). I have this ridiculous situation when I consider that the money in the business isn't mine (not so ridiculous really, but another philosophical blog later).
For the last 8 years or so, I've been effectively salaried, and apart from one or two extraneous and unusual situations, it stayed pretty consistent through all of that time.
During that time, the practice has doubled in size, but my ‘wages’ have remained the same, and that keeps me honest, sharp, and within my ethical guardrails.
The Amex card is a little different, though, because a little while ago I created a virtual ‘slush fund’. I lecture at various places on a range of subjects, and I'm fortunate that people are willing to pay me to do so. The lecture fees used to go into my personal business account, not the practice business account, but now they just all go into the practice.
What I do (with the help of Super PA Marie) is keep a list of all the lecture fees and then keep a list of what I spend on expenses on Amex and make sure that my lecture fees are always more than counter the Amex, and it makes me feel like I'm not stealing from the business (completely ridiculous, I know, as Hayley keeps telling me, but that is the way my head works).
What I noticed with the Amex card, though, is that there can be a drift. I can start to say, “Well, that was a business expense” when maybe it wasn't or maybe it was, but it was a little bit closer to the edge than I would like. That's ethical drift.
The next thing I'll be spending all sorts of things on my business card, which has nothing to do with the business. And so for me, I need to get better at logging it, justifying it, and presenting it.
It all has to go to Lucy, my general manager, who then would query it with Hayley, so I guess it's well placed in any event, but you see how that works, you see how it works with patients, 'no one's watching I'll just do this' or 'the patient thinks I've done that procedure as well, so I'll just put the charge through because I did a really good job' and then you're off and gone and you're bent.
It's real ethical drift. The pool is terrible for almost everyone.
Checks and balances, please, for all of us.
Checks and balances.
Blog Post Number - 4231
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