Generic Inabilities and the Use of a Decision-Making Rubric for Addressing Deficits in Professional Behavior

Background and Purpose. The difficulty of identification, remediation, and evaluation of inappropriate behaviors remains a challenge for academic and clinical faculty who are hesitant to address deficits in the affective domain. Because inappropriate behavior can potentially affect patient care and outcomes, academic and clinical faculty must be able to identify and respond to these “Generic Inabilities.” The purpose of this article is to identify factors that foster Generic Inabilities and provide guidance to clinical and academic faculty on their fiduciary responsibilities and courses of action. Position and Rationale. The physical therapy profession has developed a variety of documents that describe physical therapists' responsibilities and obligations to professionalism; these can be considered a “Physical Therapy Code of Conduct.” An examination of behaviors that are contrary to expected conduct, termed “Generic Inabilities,” can open the conversation regarding generally unacceptable behaviors and may assist academic and clinical faculty to address unprofessional and negative behaviors when observed. Factors that contribute to the development or continuance of Generic Inabilities are silence, a misunderstanding of motivations, academic and clinical education disparities, and anti-role modeling. Numerous laws, policies, and procedures seek to protect the public from unscrupulous, incompetent, and unethical practitioners. Therefore, clinical and academic faculties have a legal and ethical responsibility to act in the face of inappropriate behaviors. Recommendations. A decision-making rubric is proposed for addressing Generic Inabilities. It includes detailed fact-finding, a consideration of the ethical principles, an assessment of the expected professional duties, an analysis of the desired outcomes, implementation of action(s), and re-assessment as needed. The adapted decisionmaking rubric for addressing behavioral issues takes the practitioner through a series of 7 questions that lead to implementation of a specific action.