Professional Ethics.. What have I learnt?

After reading and re-reading the Professional Ethics paragraphs in my reader I have started to piece together personal ethics, professional ethics and employer expectation ethics. 

As I have mentioned in previous posts, dancers ethics are a little on the grey side of things. I discussed where our hands have to go and what attire is deemed ethically and professionally appropriate, but as I delve a little deeper I can start to touch on ethics which apply more strictly to my own topic of physiotherapy within my profession inquiry. 

So what have I learnt? Whilst reading through the reader I came across a paragraph written about professional norms and how they have developed their own ethics. Dancers definitely have a set of ethical norms but rarely are these norms challenged. Recently in my workplace they were though. We currently have an outside choreographer working with us on a piece that will be premiered in March. The style of the piece is Street Jazz/Hip Hop. Already when seeing the cast sheet and researching into the choreographers previous works I knew this would be a problem.. and here in lies my ethical dilemma. As a professional and someone who takes great pride in their work I want to perform his choreography to the best of my ability but doing so will endanger my body greatly. Is disappointing my boss by refusing to dance dangerous steps unethical? Should I just take the risk and hope for the best?  We are (as stated in our official employment contract) Classical Ballet Dancers in our company. The steps he is asking us to do are those that would be done by a street dancer. Within just five days of rehearsals, four dancers are already injured. 

This ties in with physiotherapy in my own dance company. By not having an on-sight fully qualified professional physiotherapist, injuries have occurred. If we did have one, would it be ethical for him/her to step in and raise awareness about the concern of dangerous steps? Would it be taken more seriously coming from someone qualified/ more experienced? What I'm learning is that dancers need to have a stricter ethical stand point on our own bodies and choreography that could endanger that. Most of the time people are injuries are because they are expected to just "get on with it" or "suck it up". Then I delved a little deeper, would others feel ethically right about voicing concern? It's this concept of "right and wrong" that surrounds ethics that I am trying to distinguish within my own working environment. Reading through the reader and doing these tasks is definitely helping me understand the ethics within my company.

When understanding the ethics when conducting my own questions within my inquiry, I will have to take many things into account. Confidentiality being a big factor. What happens between physiotherapist and dancer during a treatment session is under the same roof as a doctors confidentiality agreement (something I learnt whilst reading through the Reader material). Fair analysis of information obtained is another huge part that will play in my inquiry. It would be very easy for me to "cherry pick" information that would support my claims, but it is ethical to take both sides of any story into account to make a fair inquiry. 

After discussing with different members of my SIG group I will now start to prepare drafts of my Ethical Release Form and my Employer Support Form with special attention focused on the ethical dimension of them. As discussed above, I have a lot of ethical situations to take into consideration whilst in my preparation phase that will tie in closely with my future inquiry.