The Problematic Virtue of Physician Exceptionalism 公开
Mang, Maggie (2017)
Published
Abstract
This thesis looks specifically at virtues within the medical
community, focusing on the virtue of physician exceptionalism as an
example of a problematic virtue. Taking Alasdair MacIntyre's point
on virtue ethics and bioethicist Edmund Pellegrino's own
interpretation as it pertains to medicine as initial grounding
points, this thesis seeks to unpack how a virtue could be
problematic in essence. Within medical education, the virtue of
physician exceptionalism is internalized, reinforced, and inherited
through subtler avenues such as through medical school's hidden
curriculum. Ultimately, physician exceptionalism is a problematic
virtue because it leads to the distortion of physician self-image
as it relates to physician psychological distress, seen starkly in
the high rates of depression, anxiety, suicide attempts, and
suicide completion. As a virtue, physician exceptionalism
contributes to certain goals of medicine, yet is problematic in the
way it negatively affects its practitioners. Fundamentally, the
nature of something as oxymoronic as a
‘problematic virtue' as a distinct and separate
category has larger, philosophical implications in how we approach,
understand, and converse about the virtues in our everyday life and
society.
Table of Contents
Introduction…………….…………….…………….…………….…………….…………….…………….…………….…………….1
I. Virtues in the Medical Community ………………….…………….…………….…………….…………….…………….4
Alasdair MacIntyre and virtues……………….…………….……………….…………….……………….……….4
Pellegrino on medicine as a moral community……………………………………………………………….6
The virtue of physician exceptionalism…………………………………………………………………………..7
II. On the virtue of exceptionalism as found and perpetuated within the medical community…11
Virtue of physician exceptionalism as inherent within Pellegrino's moral community….11
The implicit reinforcement of physician exceptionalism……………………………………………….13
Current climate of physician psychological distress………………………………………………………17
III. Analysis and concluding remarks…………………………………………………………………………………………19
The problematic nature of physician exceptionalism as a virtue…………………………………..19
Concluding remarks and future implications………………………………………………………………..22
Notes……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….26
References…..…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..26
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