| Summary: | This article begins by introducing the different interpretations and movements associated with professionalism, as well as
their relationship with medical ethics and bioethics. It then formulates and presents a proposal linked to virtue-based professionalism in which, on the one hand, these three fields are reconciled and, on the other hand, medicine is able to preserve its identitarian goals, adapt to social and technological changes, and contribute to social progress. More concretely, it argues for the need
to recover the heart of medicine, that is, to reincorporate its subjective dimension and learn to properly apply it to professional
knowledge and practice. To achieve this objective, a three-stage training plan that inverts David T. Stern’s pyramid is presented.
In the first stage, doctors (current or future) learn to exercise the virtue of sensory contemplation– the first habit of the heart – at
the patient’s bedside.
Professionalism guides this eminently practical training step. The second stage explores the reasons behind professional
ethics from the internal logic of medicine, a task for which the study of the history of medical thought is crucial. Here medical
ethics plays a special role. Professional training culminates in the acquisition of the intellectual virtues that enable intellectual
contemplation– the second habit of the heart. With it, doctors are able to decide what is truly best for each patient, assume responsibilities as a citizen and last, but not least, take on the practice of medicine with passion.
Bioethics introduces professionals to this third training stage, which typically occurs in the university setting.
|
|---|