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by Kevin M. Sanders
This week OU-COM
introduced something new — an honor code — to its first- and
second-year students. With the introduction of the honor code,
the college is no longer proctoring examinations. Students are
expected to practice honest and professional behavior — just as physicians who are in practice are required to do,
said Dean Jack Brose, D.O. During two separate two-hour
sessions sponsored by Student Government, Brose and faculty and
staff members met with each class in Irvine 194 to discuss the
code and answer questions concerning it.
The purpose of the
code, say OU-COM officials, is to promote ethical and
professional standards of personal conduct and to establish the
habits of honesty and professional accountability in OU-COM
students.
The introduction of
the honor code also further extends a cornerstone of college’s
adult education model — training self-motivated,
self-disciplined learners.
Encouraging ethical
behavior and professional conduct, said Brose, is consistent
with the Osteopathic Oath that students swear when becoming
osteopathic physicians.
“Patients will
expect that you are policing yourself, that you are responsible
for your own behavior — for being honest and acting with
integrity,” said Brose. “And your fellow physicians will expect
the same thing.”
“One of the
definitions of a profession is that it establishes its own
standards and enforces those standards. That’s what defines us
as a profession.”
Brose said that as a
medial school it is important to demonstrate to the public that
the physicians it produces are willing to take personal
responsibility for their actions — and the actions of the
physicians that they are in practice with.
This responsibility
is not merely academic.
A member of the
state medical board pointed out, said Brose, that if during the
course of an investigation of a physician the board found that
another physician was aware of the wrongdoing and didn’t report
it, it might not only suspend the license of the offending
physician, it also might suspend the license of the physician
who didn’t report it.
The honor code
models this same expectation of OU-COM students, said Brose.
“Probably what’s
going through your mind right now is, ‘How can I possibly turn
in my buddy who’s sitting next to me?’”
“Well, fast forward
a few years from now and your best friend is in practice with
you or an intern with you or a resident with you.
“You see him or her
doing something wrong or cheating in some way — altering a
progress note or inappropriately prescribing a drug. What are
you going to do? Are you going to say I can’t possibly turn them
in because they’re my friend?
“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.”
This was the
paramount purpose of establishing OU-COM’s honor code, he said.
Brose stressed that
during the course of this year that the code would be reviewed
and revised as necessary. Students as well as faculty would
serve on an honor council that would deal with infractions and
be a part of the process of review and revision of the code.
In addressing
second-year students, Brose said that he realized they would
bear a two-fold burden with the introduction of the code: 1) of
having completed a year of medical school without the code and
2) of being responsible for students you have befriended, as
well as yourself.
“We know that it is
particularly hard for you because you know the person next to
you. For this reason, first-years don’t have to wrestle with
this as much as you,” he said.
“But I can’t think
of a better class to help us work through this, and I appreciate
your willingness to do this.”
This week in the
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