Dr. Cidalia Paiva
Ph.D. Phil.
Dexterity PD Instructor
Dr. Cidalia Paiva holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy with a specialization in Bio-Medical Ethics. After completing her doctorate at York University in Toronto, Ontario she was employed as a clinical ethicist in local community hospitals before moving into the area of education delivery and administration.
Dr. Paiva is recognized as one of North America’s leading experts on Ethics and Professionalism and has enjoyed a very successful career as an instructor, curriculum developer and author for a variety of healthcare practitioners including; medical interns, registered nurses, naturopathic physicians, pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and massage therapists.
Over the years Dr. Paiva has assisted numerous healthcare regulatory bodies, professional associations and colleges/universities in the creation of Codes of Ethics and delivery of customized curriculum and training resources in Healthcare Ethics and Professionalism for their registrants, members and students.
Dr. Paiva is an advocate for all patients and is committed to improving the quality of healthcare in this country. She has long believed that a key to this lies in enhancing the delivery of respect-focused patient care. As an ethicist she understands the importance of the ethical principle of Respect for Persons and the need for all healthcare practitioners to embrace their commitment to this principle by recognizing and honoring the inherent worth, humanity and dignity of each patient as the unique individual that they are.
Dr. Paiva recognizes that this requires education and understanding in the areas of diversity and inclusion, which has long been an area of her own professional development and is the primary motivator for the development of this online learning module. Although there are many educational resources available today on these topics this module is tailored specifically for healthcare practitioners, with its foundation in healthcare ethics and its overarching objective of raising the quality of healthcare through the enhanced delivery of respect-focused patient care.
As Dr. Paiva explains; “ethics, and more specially the principle of Respect for Persons, and the concepts of diversity and inclusion are inextricably linked topics. In order to respect a person, you must understand them and accept them for who they are”. This requires a base of knowledge and self-awareness of the myths, stereotypes and biases that may currently be obstructing and impeding practitioners from the delivery of respect-focused care to all patients regardless of; race, culture, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.
DEXTERITY PD COURSES
Dr. Paiva has worked with Dexterity PD to bring a suite of ethics courses tailored to issues faced by massage and manual therapists in the course of practice. These courses address how to create an inclusive practice and address a variety of ethical areas, including racism, cultural diversity, gender and sexuality, ageism, ability, and more.
These courses are designed to help the therapist develop a broader ethical and philosophical understanding of these concepts and learn how to apply them in day-to-day practice.
We apologize for the delay in the release of these courses. We have been hard at work making sure that we do justice to Dr. Paiva’s expertise.
The courses are in the process of being finalized and will be released early in 2023.
