On Professionalism

It is another wonderful Friday and once again we get to feast on a literal piece from this forum. I will, as usual begin with an explanation. In the last article, I had prompted you to prompt me to write about the things I learnt from being in a bridal party. It turns out, however that two people were not too happy about me writing about my experience. So, what did they do? They ended up threatening me not to write about it, so here we are. And for you, Dr Ujeni, the intention was (or is) not that of writing about you. Anyway. On to the business of the day.

Some of you might know a human called Jeremy Clarkson. He rose to fame over his role in the BBC TV show, Top Gear. What I did not know until recently is that while he was still hosting and writing scripts for Top Gear he was also writing a column in the Sunday Times (a UK tabloid, osati izi mumakhala Mufupika’s Calabash by Joram Nyirongo). In that column, he wrote a lot of columns but the one that caught my attention was one in which he talked about the mistakes that people make in workplaces. He talked about a guy who used to operate machines. For that person, if there was a little mistake somebody down the line could end up with missing limbs or dead. He talked of how doctors deal with something as delicate as life whereas the biggest mistake he could make could just get him some disciplinary action and a little fine. In his conclusion, he implored on everyone who had something we could call a job to ensure that they avoided mistakes.

If you have worked for some time, I am sure you have at some point made a mistake that has affected your work in one way or the other. I have made my own too; both in my doctor days and in my office days. A surgical procedure that I performed while I was half asleep because I had been overworked the previous night went wrong and the patient ended up staying longer than planned in the hospital. In my office job days, I have authorized, said, delayed and done things I was not supposed to. If you have been paying attention, you will now discover that while some mistakes are avoidable, some situations leave you with no choice other than one that makes you dive into a situation that makes you prone to making a mistake. With the diversity in work environments and jobs, some mistakes are bound to affect people more than others and while some mistakes can be hard to prevent, there are others we could prevent by employing a little professionalism.

Having started out my work life in the mainstream medical profession where I was on the bedside with patients, it was not rare for me to hear of people making mistakes. As I highlighted, there was a point at which I made my own for various reasons. There was a time that a certain document from the Medical Council came to my perusal. It was dictating that there were some medical personnel that were being suspended for reasons ranging from making patients pay to going to work under the influence of alkanols. Considering the delicate nature of human life, I feel like the suspensions were warranted and the punishments could have been stiffer. If you think of it, however, a little umunthu and professionalism could have saved the whole situation.

The medical profession is not the only field in which we have witnessed lapses in professionalism. I will shift to the media and take you back to the coverage of the 2019 elections whose fever we are yet to recover from. One reporter, in a Malawi Electoral Commission presser took us all by surprise when he commented on the looks of the electoral body’s chairperson. As if that was not enough, he went on comment on her earrings. The social media exploded and was split with comments. Gullible Malawians fell for the story which someone cooked to say that the man from Capital FM was commenting on the earrings because they were not the ordinary type but ones that had an embedded listening device. Later what we got was an apology from the reporter and issue was laid to rest along with the memes it generated. Fast forward to 2020 we have our state broadcaster allowing the airing of news that brands a human rights NGO a terrorist organization. There was a writer who thought it wise to call HRDC a terrorist organization and when the editor in the news department saw it, he gave it a nod and gave it to one experienced anchor with a good voice to confidently read it to us all. Perhaps this might not be a big issue because of the alarm-fatigue we have towards our state broadcaster. They have given us a lot of talking points in the past to the extent that whenever there is something wrong going on with their radio and television broadcast we don’t really see it as something strange.

Then there is this thing that is happening in pretty much every system from banking, civil service, non-governmental organizations and pretty much every other entity including the much-discussed medical profession; leaking of materials that are not for public consumption. There was a time when the whole nation was shocked by the release of the whole salary structure of one of the banks in the country. You might remember the time someone leaked an audio of a conversation between two big political gurus calling their rivals all sorts of names. Then we have the numerous leaked memos and reports from top offices that we have all shared and perused despite the fact that they were not intended for us. The problem with these leaked materials is that some of them, by nature are very sensitive.

Recent days have seen us take a look at the autopsy report for the young lady who recently died under what people thought were suspicious circumstances. Now, this is an autopsy report that is key to an investigation. It is supposed to be some private and legal document what was supposed to be presented to the relevant authorities to aid in the investigation of the case in question. Somehow, at 23:59 on the 15^th of January, 2020 the document ended up in my phone when someone posted it in a social group I am on. Six hours later, I saw the same document being posted on a professional forum before it became a trending document, being posted even in football groups.

Here we are, then. There is a lapse of professionalism in many fields and if I haven’t mentioned yours it does not mean that you are okay in there. Beyond the fields, it is worth noting that individuals are the ones who are involved in unprofessional acts. Misuse of work resources and time, laziness, being unpresentable, abuse of power, leaking confidential information and documents and many other things you can think of. Perhaps we should all go through self-examination and think of ways in which we could improve our work flow and fields in general by acting a bit more professionally.