Virtues in Medical Practice

by Edmund D. Pellegrino, David C. Thomasma

In recent years, virtue theories have enjoyed a renaissance of interest among general and medical ethicists. This book offers a virtue-based ethic for medicine, the health professions, and health care. Beginning with a historical account of the concept of virtue, the authors construct a theory of the place of the virtues in medical practice. Their theory is grounded in the nature and ends of medicine as a special kind of human activity. The concepts of virtue, the virtues, and the virtuous physician are examined along with the place of the virtues of trust, compassion, prudence, justice, courage, temperance, and effacement of self-interest in medicine. The authors discuss the relationship between and among principles, rules, virtues, and the philosophy of medicine. They also address the difference virtue-based ethics makes in confronting such practical problems as care of the poor, research with human subjects, and the conduct of the healing relationship. This book with the
author's previous volumes, A Philosophical Basis of Medical Practice and For the Patient's Good, are part of their continuing project of developing a coherent moral philosophy of medicine.

Genres: Philosophy

205 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[Zach Tentor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Explanation of different virtues and a virtue ethics framework specifically relating to medical practice. They explored the links between virtues, principles, and duties of individual physicians and also the community of physicians, with an emphasis on the character of the physician as the basis of the physician-patient relationship. It is an attempt to synthesize the principlism of Beauchamp and Childress with a teleological virtue ethics framework. The virtues examined include trust, compassion, phronesis (prudence), justice, fortitude, temperance, integrity, and self-effacement. The healing relationship between the physician and patient should return to the model of a covenant of trust, rather than a contract, free market relationship, or mechanic model. Overall, an great response to principlism by showing how virtue ethics is still needed.