CURRENT ISSUE
BACK ISSUES
SUBSCRIBE
ADVERTISE
ABOUT JCEHP
FOR AUTHORS
JCEHP AWARD
SEARCH
|
|
Volume 16 (3)
Volume 16, Issue 3, Summer 1996
J Contin Educ Health Prof 1996; 16(3):173-180
ORIGINAL ARTICLES
Physician Ethics and the Continuum of Lifelong Learning
Nuala P. Kenny, MD
A b s t r a c t
Formal instruction in ethical analysis and decision making has become an integral
component of both undergraduate and graduate medical education. This inclusion has been
made because of the recognition of an increasing complexity of medical science and technology
in an increasingly pluralistic and diverse society. Despite the fact that most physicians in
practice today have had little or no formal ethics education, there is virtually no regular inclusion
of ethics in programs of continuing medical education. This neglect of ongoing personal
and professional development in ethical analysis and reflection is all the more significant
because of the day-to-day encounters with these issues and dilemmas that characterize modern
medical practice. Further, the "hidden curriculum" embedded in the culture of medicine may
be more significant in the education and formation of young physicians than any formal ethics
education. This hidden curriculum is the lived practice of medicine. This paper reviews the
need for a recognition of the centrality of ethics education in the lifelong learning of physicians
because of the moral nature of medical practice, the tradition of ethics in medicine, the
expectations of patients and families, and physician obligations to the profession itself.
Keywords: Ethics; Hippocratic Oath; moral sensitivity; peer review; tradition; uncertainty
|