Mindfulness and Human Dignity [2 Ethics CPD points]

Welcome to an exploration that we hope will deepen how you approach healthcare encounters and strengthen your capacity for presence in the work you're already doing.

Every day, across our country's clinics, hospitals, community health centres, and private practices, millions of healthcare encounters take place. In each of these moments, two essential realities intersect: the clinical need for competent, evidence-based care, and the human need for dignity, respect, and genuine connection. How we navigate this intersection - how we hold both professional competence and caring presence - influences individual healing and contributes to the culture of our healthcare system.

This course builds on a recognition that ethical healthcare extends beyond following protocols or avoiding harm - though these remain essential. Ethical healthcare includes remembering, in each encounter, that we are privileged to witness and serve human vulnerability and suffering in its myriad forms. It's about developing resources to remain present, compassionate, and wise within the real pressures that define modern healthcare practice.

Over the next five modules, we'll explore how mindfulness can support the core ethical principles that guide healthcare practice: 

1. Mindfulness and Human Dignity [2 Ethics CPD points]

2. Non-Maleficence – First, Do No Harm [2 Ethics CPD points]

3. Beneficence – Compassion in Practice [2 Ethics CPD points]

4. Autonomy and Mindfulness in Clinical Practice [2 Ethics CPD points]

5. Context Sensitivity and Trauma-Informed Care [2 Ethics CPD points]

We'll explore practical approaches to cultivating moments of presence within pressure, compassion alongside clinical demands, and wisdom within complexity. The course will integrate both theoretical exploration and practical skill development. Each module includes contextualising the theme, reflections, brief guided mindfulness practices you can adapt to your context and include in your clinical work, and multi-media to add texture. You will need to complete the MCQ at the end of each module to receive your Ethics CPD points, which will be manually loaded onto the HPCSA website.

You can choose to do the whole 5-module package or choose specific modules (each module taking between 1-2 hours),depending on your Ethics CPD points requirements. They can be done sequentially or as stand-alone modules in your own time. Take a look at this brief introductory video from Simon Whitesman,  the Course Curator, with his bio below.

Dr. Simon Whitesman MBChB PhD

Simon is a Cape Town-based integrative medical doctor, psychotherapist and mindfulness teacher with over 30 years of experience at the intersection of medicine, psychology and contemplative practice. He works with individuals and organisations - corporate, educational and community - to navigate complexity, trauma and stress-related conditions, in which embodied presence, relational intelligence, cognitive insight and self-compassion are foregrounded.

Simon has a medical degree from the University of Cape Town and a PhD from Stellenbosch University. He also holds a diploma in psychodynamic psychotherapy and is an accredited teacher of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR).

He is the founder of the Institute for Mindfulness South Africa, a non-profit organisation,dedicated to supporting training and community access to context-relevant and trauma-sensitive mindfulness practices, becoming a national thought leader in integrating mindfulness into healthcare, education, and trauma-informed practice. In 2012, he developed and co-taught a 2-year professional training in Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs) in collaboration with Stellenbosch University’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. More recently, he created a shorter, accessible 10-week online course, designed to equip professionals with brief, trauma-sensitive practices relevant to their work settings. 

He has authored and/or co-authored over 20 peer-reviewed articles on the subject of mindfulness, well-being and trauma.