We argue that a turn toward virtue ethics as a way of understanding medical professionalism represents both a valuable corrective and a missed opportunity. We look at three ways in which a closer appeal to virtue ethics could help address current problems or issues in professionalism education - first, balancing professionalism training with demands for professional virtues as a prerequisite; second, preventing demands for the demonstrable achievement of competencies from working against ideal professionalism education as lifelong learning; and third, avoiding temptations to dismiss moral distress as a mere "hidden curriculum" problem. As a further demonstration of how best to approach a lifelong practice of medical virtue, we will examine altruism as a mean between the extremes of self-sacrifice and selfishness. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.
CITATION STYLE
McCammon, S. D., & Brody, H. (2012). How virtue ethics informs medical professionalism. HEC Forum, 24(4), 257–272. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-012-9202-0
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