Medical Ethics

The teaching of medical ethics in Med School is timely.... in fact long overdue. For too long people have just paid lip service to the teaching of ethics and assumed that medical students will kind of pick it up as they went along, and simply imbibed through observing their 'role models'.

I want to go further and suggest that medical ethics is not just limited to what is being discussed within the profession. Medical ethics, like all other kind of ethic practice and concepts belong to the community and has to be shaped by community values. It is therefore vital that the discussion of medical ethics, whether it be related to organ trading, euthanasia or the over-prescriptions of slimming pills, must occur in the public domain and not restricted to hallowed hallways, and hospital meet rooms.

Here's my plea to the medical community, and to those involved in some way or other in the deliberations about contentious issues.... come out into the public space. Let your discussions be public so that the community can learn and therefore contribute to this process. There is nothing to be afraid of, because public discussions can only enrich the process.