Open AccessProgress and litigation: protecting the urge to innovate in an increasingly litigious environment
Author(s) -
Alec Samuels
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
bulletin of the royal college of surgeons of england
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1478-7075
pISSN - 1473-6357
DOI - 10.1308/147363514x14042954769078
Subject(s) - duty , work (physics) , order (exchange) , medicine , disposition , engineering ethics , public relations , medical education , psychology , law , business , political science , engineering , social psychology , mechanical engineering , finance
Does the doctor have a duty to advance medicine? In law it is said that ‘every man is a debtor to his profession’. Doctors should always seek to do a good job, to improve their practice, to advance the progress of medicine. The doctor may be of an aspirational or progressive disposition, may work in research or in an academic and teaching post, which ideally should be linked to a practical post. As an ‘ordinary’ practitioner he or she may lack creative ideas, be very busy with day-to-day ordinary conventional ‘humdrum’ work and therefore may not have much opportunity for innovation. However, doctors are required to undergo regular training throughout their careers, in order to keep up to date. It is suggested that medical practitioners have a duty to do what they can to improve and advance medicine, within certain restraints. If new techniques are not tried out then medical progress will be stifled.