Gabriel Rodrigues AE May rodrig01
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Attitudes towards ethical behaviour of
medical professionals
Gabriel Rodrigues AE May rodrig01
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Abstract
Australia：Attitudes towards ethical behaviour of medical professionals代写
In the recent past, doctors were held in high regard. With their strong ethical values and
commendable actions, the public respected doctors greatly. However in recent times, with the rise of
characters like “Doctor Death”, it is apparent ethics might be taking a back seat in modern medicine.
The purpose of this report is to determine if an unethical doctor’s actions would influence his/her
patients to be disinclined to visit him/her, despite the level of their medical skill. A survey consisting
of 25 questions regarding ethics and other possible factors were conducted to collect information to
allow for analysis of people’s behaviour and attitudes. The total number of surveyors was 107,
consisting of 62 males and 45 females. With regards to common illnesses, convenience and quality
of overall service took a priority, disproving the hypothesis. However, in cases of life threatening of
fatal illnesses, respondents’ expressed they might possibly then take into account a doctor’s ethical
past. It was, therefore, recommended that a doctor’s medical history be made more easily available
to the public to create a more transparent and accountable nature to allow the public more
information in the situation where a doctor’s medical history might decide the fate of their loved
ones.
Australia：Attitudes towards ethical behaviour of medical professionals代写
Gabriel Rodrigues AE May rodrig01
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Introduction
In recent years there has been much debate about the increasing cases of malpractice. This is an
important issue as it involves the ethical foundation of the medical profession.
Ever since the 5 th century, medical professionals have been swearing by the Hippocratic oath
(Edelstein 1943, p. 56). This practice is testament to the strong ethical and moral beliefs that the
medical profession subscribes to for the betterment of society (American Medical Association 2001).
The 4 founding principles are commonly regarded as respect for autonomy, beneficence, non-
maleficence, and justice (Gillon 2004, pp. 307-312). They represent a set of moral pillars that are
“neutral between competing religious, political, cultural, and philosophical theories, can be shared by
everyone regardless of their background” (Gillon 1994, p. 184).
For the scope of this report, an unethical medical practitioner is one who engages in voluntary
clinical malpractice. Medical malpractice can be defined as “improper, illegal, or negligent
professional behavior” (The Oxford Dictionary 2011), with respect to the medical field. Although
72% of complaints of malpractices are due to ‘pain and suffering’ (Epstein 2002, pp. 2425-2430),
more tangible and severe cases such as the one revolving around Dr Jayant Patel, who by his
negligence caused the death of 3 patients (Bentley 2010), will be considered as unethical.
Research shows that Australians trust their medical professionals, general practitioners more so than
specialists, to a great extent (Hardie & Critchley, 2008). A study done by Hickson et al. (2002, pp.
2951-2957), highlights that unhappiness in patients is not based on “patient characteristics, illness
complexity, or even physicians' technical skills. Instead, …appears related to patients' dissatisfaction
with their physicians' ability to establish rapport, provide access, administer care and treatment
consistent with expectations, and communicate effectively”.
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Reports have shown that neither age nor educational levels affect trust and attitude ratings towards
general practitioners and specialists (Hardie & Critchley, 2008). However, if a trusting doctor-patient
relationship exists, that leads to more instances of “seeking care” (Trachtenberg, Dugan & Hall 2005,
pp. 344-352). Other sources show that characteristics that sustain trust with patients are ‘deepened
commitments to character, care, and trust as constitutive properties of their professional mission’
(Clark 2002, pp. 11-29). This research displays how relationship building is paramount to subsequent
medical visits; however, it has not been proven if ethics plays an equal or greater role in that
decision-making process.
Although ethics has played a fundamental role in the field of medicine, little research has been done
on how the likelihood of a patient consulting a medical professional is dependent on his/her ethical
practices. If a medical professional is perceived to be unethical, the majority of people will be
disinclined to visit him/her, despite the level of his/her medical skill. The report will firstly address
the methodology of the research, preceded by the results obtained, discussions and a conclusion with
future recommendation for future study.
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Methodology
Australia：Attitudes towards ethical behaviour of medical professionals代写
This research was carried out by means of questionnaire that comprised of mainly quantitative and
partially qualitative questions. This was mainly due to complexities associated with unstructured
interview techniques and time constraints. A questionnaire was formulated to determine the
motivations that affect respondents’ decision to revisit the same doctor.
There were 107 participants in total, consisting of 62 males and 45 females. The participants
comprise friends, relatives and schoolmates. A comprehensive majority of respondents are from
Singapore and the dominant age group is from 18 – 24, however the rest of those surveyed were
evenly spread out across ages and nationalities. By refraining from asking for names preserved
participants’ confidentiality. The questionnaire was then posted online and the data was collected
and analysed.
The survey was conducted successfully with the number of responses exceeding expectations,
however, there were failings in some aspects in the responses. Firstly, participants provided feedback
that the options listed did not contain a fundamental factor behind their behaviour. Furthermore,
respondents seemed to have misunderstood a series of questions requiring them to rank in order of
importance the reasons that would affect their decisions in revisiting their doctor/doctors. This might
have been due to the ambiguity of the instructions provided. Finally, the demographic of respondents
are biased towards Singaporeans aged 18 – 24. These factors mentioned might have affected the
accuracy of answers.
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Interpretation
Questions 1 to 7 focused on participant’s habits with relation to seeking medical treatment.
• An overwhelming majority of respondents consulted a General Practitioner for their various
illnesses. 1
• On an average, 4 in 10 participants visited their general practitioner every half yearly.
Questions 8 to 9 were designed to investigate the participant’s behaviour with respect to revisiting a
regular doctor.
• A majority of respondents show that they do visit a regular doctor.
• Overall, half of them gave the quality of service as the reason for this occurrence. 2
Questions 10 to 11 tested participant’s knowledge on the Hippocratic oath.
• Less than half of those asked heard about it before. 3
• Furthermore, a majority of those who heard of the oath were able to give an accurate
description of the main reasons behind the oath.
Questions 12 to 22 focused on attitudes towards the medical profession
• More than half of respondents demonstrated disapproval of unethical practices.
• Supporting this, a large majority voiced that doctor’s should conduct stringent check-ups. 4
• A large proportion of participants also expressed they prefer the medical professional they are
visiting to be free of malpractice history
• 4 in 5 asked agreed that medical professionals should be bound by a code of ethics. 5
1 See Diagram 1
2 See Diagram 2
3 See Diagram 3
4 See Diagram 4
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Australia：Attitudes towards ethical behaviour of medical professionals代写
Questions 23 to 24 were aimed at identifying most important factor that made respondents want to
revisit their doctor again.
• While it was not clear which factor was the most important, the length of medical leave
appeared to be the least popular reason to want to revisit the same doctor.
Finally, question 25 addressed how respondents attitudes towards sending a loved one to a doctor
with a history of unethical practices.
• More than 3 quarters of respondents would not send their loved one to such a medical
professional. 6
5 See Diagram 5
6 See Diagram 6
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Diagram 1
Diagram 2
Diagram 3
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Diagram 4
Diagram 5
Diagram 6
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Discussion & Conclusion
The purpose of this report is to investigate if ethical practice is the primary cause of the likelihood of
patients returning to the same doctor. Unexpectedly, respondents did not rate ethics very highly in
their normal visits to the General Practitioner (GP); rather, it was the quality of overall service that
determined regular visits to the same medical professional.
A significant number of participant responses supported the hypothesis that if their medical
professional is perceived to be unethical, the majority will be disinclined to visit him/her, despite the
level of his/her medical skill. Results showed that where loved ones might be involved; a large
majority of participants are more likely to seek medical help from someone else. This is supportive
of Kirklin (2008), who writes that modern society and modern day ethics do not subscribe to the
belief of “medical paternalism” (Wicclair 2008, pp. 93-99), which is portrayed in the fictional world
of “House M.D.”. However, a significant number of respondents replied that they might
hypothetically seek to save their loved ones at any cost. This could be attributed to emotions and fear
of loss, invoking a sense of protective behaviour to want the best for loved ones that might lead them
to take ‘radical approaches’ (Wyndham 2003) that might not be viewed as conventional or totally
ethical.
However, participants strongly favoured another factor that contradicted the hypothesis. Overall
quality of service was in the forefront of participants minds when the considering revisiting a
previous doctor, this is contrary to Hardie and Critchley (2008) who write that trust is the most
important factor. This is further contradicted by results that showed 40% of participants surveyed
even placed trust as the least important factor. A possibility behind this could be due to the fact that a
large majority of respondents are Singaporean; the large portion of participants might visit
‘Polyclinics’ (Ministry of Health Singapore 2007) that are under the umbrella of subsidised medical
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care and public healthcare (Lim 2005, pp. 461-467). As patients seek consultation at the government
polyclinics, they are allocated a doctor from the team working for the day; this would limit their
options to choose a regular doctor. Hence “physicians' ability to establish rapport, provide access,
administer care and treatment” (Hickson et al. 2002, pp. 2951-2957) could possibly be lower down
in the list of priorities.
Results for an important portion of the responses targeted at determining the most important factor
that respondents desire in their doctors were without a general consensus; a possibility is that it could
have resulted in the ambiguity of the instructions given for the set of questions. Furthermore,
Kinzler, Shutts and Correll (2010, pp. 581-592) explain that humans prioritise uniquely based on
“gender, race, age, and language”, hinting that individuals may have varied concerns based on their
environment. Several participants who also felt that location was an important factor when deciding
to revisit their doctor put feedback forward to highlight this point. This might be attributed to the
highly successful Singaporean health system that the World Health Organisation has placed as 6 th in
the world (World Health Organization 2000) that participants take the quality, availability and
accessibility for granted since Singaporeans largely represented the sample population.
Components of the questionnaire were targeted at respondent’s attitudes towards ethical behaviour of
their medical professionals. Results showed that participants are able to differentiate between ethical
and unethical behaviours; half of which were able to give an accurate account of the ‘Hippocratic
oath’ (Edelstein 1943, p. 56). This indicated that it is possible that a majority of the population know
the roles of doctors and their role in bettering society (American Medical Association 2001).
However it could be pointed out that most participants have not been placed in a situation where they
needed to exercise their knowledge of the pillars of ‘autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and
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justice’ (Gillon 2003, pp. 307-312), therefore in all possibility, participants might not be able to
accurately predict to their behaviour regarding the ethical behaviour of medical professionals.
This report was conducted to investigate if popularity of a medical professional is determined
primarily by his/her ethical practices. The results showed that it marginally affected participants’
decisions when faced with a common illness. However when faced with the mammoth task of
deciding to send a loved one or relative to an unethical doctor, respondents would reconsider. Hence,
there is not enough evidence to support or disprove the hypothesis; therefore, a more in depth study
would be required.
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Recommendations
Findings indicated that participants largely make basic medical decisions based on convenience
while only more critical or life-threatening decisions might them from their ethical knowledge
therefore it can be deduced that people’s level of decision making is dependent on the severity of the
situation, where they might be more forgiving of lesser ethical decisions. This is contrary to previous
studies done which emphasise doctor-patient trust. The implication of these results are that the public
is not aware their doctor’s medical history, furthermore more research should be done as to how a
more transparent system and increased accountability can affect patient behaviour. This research
might provide insight to medical management seeking to understand the patient attitudes and
behaviour.
Gabriel Rodrigues AE May rodrig01
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References
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Appendix A: Questionnaire
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Appendix B: Results
