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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 29th
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.
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.”
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