By Brooke Bunch

The recent introduction of an honor code at Ohio University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine elicited the praise of Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, who recently commended the school for initiating the new code, the first of its kind in the school’s history.

“I’m extremely impressed with the honor code,” Moyer told students at OU-COM’s 29^th Convocation Ceremony, held Sept. 11. “Be honest, and conduct yourself in a way your patients build trust in you. You are personally responsible for your conduct and for the actions of those around you.”

In his comments, Moyer compared the code of conduct to an annual message he offers to incoming Ohio law students.

“My theme is always professionalism,” he said. “The message of both professions is exactly the same -- honesty, an old-fashioned word, but so important today.”

The code was instituted Sept. 7, relieving the duties of exam proctors with the idea that students are expected to practice honest and professional behavior, just as physicians in practice are required to do, says Dean Jack Brose, D.O.

The purpose of the code, said OU-COM officials, is to promote ethical and professional standards of personal conduct, reinforcing the traits of honesty and professional accountability in OU-COM students.

The code of conduct encourages students to not only act in a professional manner, but also to report any unethical decisions and actions of fellow medical students.

This expectation is consistent with the duties of practicing physicians, said Brose, who says a physician’s license could be suspended if he or she failed to report the wrongdoings of a colleague.

“We can’t shelter unethical or inappropriate practices as a profession,” said Brose. “We want — from day one in medical school — to establish professional behaviors. Behaviors that are expected and required as practicing physicians.”

Moyer said the new honor code enforced the high ethical standards required of such an occupation.

“One of the marks of the profession is that we adopt our own code and our own standards of conduct and we enforce them,” Moyer said. “We live by them.

“Your commitment to those principles, together with the knowledge and technical skills you will take with you, will give you a professional life filled with abundant good deeds and certainly a good bit of personal satisfaction.”

Second-year medical student Ekokobe Fonkem expressed approval of the new honor code, noting the obligation physicians must pay to honesty and ethical conduct.

“If you can’t be honest with yourself, you won’t be honest with people,” he said. “Most people in med school are mature. I think they can be given the benefit of a doubt to be honest and not to have a proctor watch over them when taking an exam.

“I know that the school feels very strongly about this, because they want us to be professional and accountable for our own behavior. I think we have to give it try.”

According to Brose, the practice of ethical behavior and professional conduct is consistent with the Osteopathic Oath.

“Patients will expect that you are policing yourself, that you are responsible for your own behavior — for being honest and acting with integrity,” he said. “And your fellow physicians will expect the same thing.”