Professionalism and integrity in medical practice

Professionalism can be defined as conforming to an expected standard of performance for any given profession. It implies proper training and acquisition of requisite skills to perform a job or role well. It can also imply one's attitude and how it impacts performance. A person who is dedicated and gives the best service that they can is considered professional, while one who has a poor attitude towards their job and gives the bare minimum is regarded as unprofessional.

department of Labor states that professionalism is a combination of qualities. Some of these include: an employee arriving on time, one who manages time well, one who takes responsibility for their behavior, works effectively with others, holds high quality work standards, is honest and a person of integrity. Professional workers are also the ones who dress appropriately and smartly.

Professionalism in the Medical Profession

Thus, when speaking about professionalism in the field of medicine, it must be all the above, captured in this field. Blackmer indicates that medical professionalism entails abilities, attitudes, ideals and actions that all that practice this profession hold to (6). He implies that those in the profession must keep updating and increasing their knowledge so as to keep their abilities sharp. They must in themselves, have made a decision to be people of integrity, adhering to strict moral codes and being people who can be relied upon to show up and always give sound judgment. This is the only way that self-regulation can actually work where the society gives a relative degree of independence to the practitioners, and they in turn adhere strictly to professionalism.

There are many professional demands that the American Board of Internal Medicine places on professionals in the medical field. One of this is a regard for all those that they are interacting with in the profession. These would be their colleagues, patients as well as relatives of those under their care. Another demand is that of strictly adhering to a high moral code that entails impartiality, honesty, being forthright, and reliable. The board also requires them to be highly dedicated to their work, to give the very best that they can, and be responsible for their actions to all involved (American Board of Internal Medicine).

When considering integrity, one can not only base it on codes, but it must go further into the very reputation of a person. This basically implies that the person in question is reliable, thoughtful, sympathetic, trustworthy and forthright. These are normally the people that others regularly go to when in need of help, because they count them as those who will not let them down. Duggar describes them as "reliable and predictable in dealing with others and with issues, and defenders of what is fair, just and acceptable" (2).

Goodstein's thoughts on a person of integrity are that it is one who adheres or holds to reliable standards in every circumstance whether good or bad, because they believe that they are the right ones to uphold. This person does not find himself in a situation of moral compromise where they allow themselves to go against what they hold to be morally right just because the situation avails an opportunity for them to do so (805-9).

Quigley expresses his thoughts on individual values by stating that the lack of trust in a person is a factor that greatly reduces their value and thus does great damage. The people who are considered of low worth are those who bypass set guidelines and thus end up losing trust among their peers. He further indicates that this lack of trust devalues even the skill of the individual. It closes doors to them as no one will entrust them with any duties as they are not considered fit to perform them (9).

Plagiarism

According to the University of North Carolina, plagiarism is "the deliberate or reckless representation of another's words, thoughts, or ideas as one's own, without attribution in connection with submission of academic work, whether graded or otherwise."

Harvard University is more strict in its definition as it specifies clearly that taking an idea or language without "crediting that source" whether the source is published or not, whether the source has no clear authorship, or any other person is theft, and hence plagiarism, which is unacceptable, be it intentional or unintentional.

Plagiarism must thus be strongly described as theft, deception, dishonesty, conmanship and imitation. The person doing it first imitates the work of another, and then passes it off as his/her own. The act cannot be softened and termed as simply copying or modelling someone's work. It is a serious work of piracy and must be condemned.