In any profession, particularly in medicine as seen in Aristotle’s formulation of the virtue ethics theory, there is a need for people practically to exercise ethical behavior, including qualities such as compassion, self-respect, and honesty (Waller, 2011). According to the virtue theory, which address the fundamental question of how a professional health worker or researcher should behave with emphasis of character, virtues can be understood as those attributes and qualities that a person possess, which motivates his/her action in an ethical or moral way. Virtues are traits or attributes that motivate people to do the right thing. These traits include integrity, professional competence, honesty, compassion, justice, care, fairness, courage, self-respect, and respect to others (Resnik, 2012).
In medical practice and research most approaches aim at promoting integrity in both research as well as in practice; more often than not, these approach are somewhat based on principle. They tend to portray ethical conduct as being made up of the adherence to not only responsibilities or duties, but also to moral or ethical rules. These approaches, however, do not offer enough guidance with respect to enhancing ethical decision-making; something that virtue theory does effectively. In medical practice and research, it is a basic obligation for practitioners to maintain confidentially and protect the privacy of patients; however, there are a number of health professional and researchers who violate the code or principle or protection of privacy and confidentiality (Resnik, 2012). By doing this, failing to protect the confidentiality and privacy of a patient is tantamount disrespecting the patient, even is done without malevolence. A health professional or researcher who does this, fails in demonstrating the virtue of integrity, as well as the virtues of respect. Usually, patients expect that their diagnosis, personal history, and prognosis will be held with the highest level of confidence and that such information can only be shared with those persons involved in their medical care and have a need to know.
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Honest communication and veracity are the ethical virtue that obligates medical researchers and professionals always to tell the truth. This is a medical principle that needs not to be violated, unless it is in an unusual situation. Acting from the virtue of compassion and honesty requires that medical professionals and researchers ensure that they deliver bad news such as death of a loved one, or medical complications with utmost compassion and honesty. One thing that most medical research, nurses, and doctors must observe is to carry out an ethically and morally valid informed-consent process. It is their obligation to assess the ability of research subjects or patients to make an informed judgment about their contribution in the research study or in their care. For example, in the Tuskegee Study (Gamble, 1997), the researchers needed to have sought consent from the black men from Alabama with regards with their care for syphilis and whether they wanted to be observed to determine the natural history of syphilis by being denied effective treatment.
In fact, they should have taken them through the informed-consent process, explain to them the issue that are related to their care and ensure that they voluntarily agreed to be observed to determine the natural history of syphilis by being denied effective treatment. Further, it is important for medical professionals and researchers must advocate the best interests of their patients and research subjects. The ethical virtue of competence requires that professionals in the medical practice and research pursue continuous professional growth.
It is clear that care ethics or virtue ethics helps professional in medical research and practice consider virtues. It is important that they are aware of their professional duties and responsibilities. Virtue theory or care ethics offers a framework for efficiency in performance of obligations and success in career development.
