Is Medicine A Ethical - 3350 Words

It has always been hard to teach people to be ethical. It is harder than ever when the system itself is corrupt, when the world is full of injustice, and when there is no longer any agreement about core values, goals or responsibilities. This is the predicament that confronts medical education. Students enter their medical courses in good faith, albeit for a variety of reasons, coming from a great many backgrounds - Christians, Moslems, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists – and places - from Australia, India, China, Southeast Asia, Africa and elsewhere. They encounter patients in public hospitals facing complex ethical choices, in intense and difficult circumstances, and find themselves facing expectations somehow to provide assistance.†¦show more content†¦The field of thought and action in which I seek to answer the question of what I should do in my practical life is what we refer to as â€Å"ethics†. Commonly, practical decisions are made in contexts of multiple influences and changing, often uncertain conditions. Ethics does not refer to decision making styles or one or other theory, so much as to a domain of thought and action that is marked off from those of knowledge and truth, aesthetics and beauty and spirituality and religion. We cannot avoid ethical decisions. In fact, ethics is everywhere, in our personal and professional lives as we go about whatever business we undertake. It is there when we ponder large scale questions about our personal aspirations and goals, about what drives us forward or holds us back. It is there when we occupy our professional roles, and fulfil the obligations and duties associated with them; and it is there when we interact with a child or a lover, a shopkeeper or a bus driver, or when we engage in a conversation, even of the most casual kind, with a stranger we come across in the street. Ethics provides our moments of action and reflection with value and meaning. It sets the goals and intentions behind the application of knowledge. It is not purely rational, but nor is purely affective. It is the practical decision making context that may take its guidance from other modalities of life – including religion and truth – but may also in turn help shape their