Article Text
PDF
Abstract
Surgeons are commonly evaluated with respect to outcomes and adherence to rules and regulations, rather than a true holistic examination of the character of the surgeon in question. We sought to examine the character failings of surgeons who faced fitness to practice enquiries under the Medical Practitioner Tribunal Service in the UK. In particular, we examined the absence of virtue as perceived through the lens of Aristotelian ethics using thematic analysis of tribunal hearing transcripts from 2016 to 2020. We identified three overarching themes that are explored in depth: ‘the god complex’, ‘reputation over integrity’ and ‘wounded pride’. We hope to use this as the foundation for a re-examination of the place of phronesis in postgraduate surgical education, which we argue should be perceived as an exercise in character development and reformation rather than the simplistic teaching of skills to standardised outcomes.
- surgery
- ethics
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Footnotes
Twitter @ElledgeSurgical
Contributors On behalf of myself and my coauthor, I can confirm that both authors have made a valid contribution to the work. Both were involved in the inception and original idea of the project, sourcing relevant material from MPTS, independent thematic analysis, discussion of the results and preparation/critical revision of the resultant manuscript. Both authors have approved the final version of the manuscript for submission and the most recent revision. Neither author has any conflicts of interest to declare.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Ethics approval No patients were involved in this research. Disclosure of all records was approved by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS), but all records have previously been accessible in the public domain for a finite time period. Formal ethical approval was not required and has not been sought.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data availability statement Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available.
Request Permissions
If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.
Copyright information:
Read the full text or download the PDF:
Other content recommended for you
- Piloting a web - based systematic collection and reporting of patient - reported outcome measures and patient - reported experience measures in chronic heart failure
- Assessment of patient centredness through patient - reported experience measures (ASPIRED): protocol of a mixed - methods study
- Patient experience of gastrointestinal endoscopy: informing the development of the Newcastle ENDOPREM™
- Relationship between patient reported experience (PREMs) and patient reported outcomes (PROMs) in elective surgery
- Hearing the voices of children and young people to develop and test a patient - reported experience measure in a specialist paediatric setting
- Patient - reported outcome and experience measures for diabetes: development of scale models, differences between patient groups and relationships with cardiovascular and diabetes complication risk factors, in a combined registry and survey study in Sweden
- How to implement patient experience surveys and use their findings for service improvement: a qualitative expert consultation study in Australian general practice
- Systematic review of approaches to using patient experience data for quality improvement in healthcare settings
- A focused mapping review and synthesis of a priori risk factors associated with medical misconduct
- New patient - reported experience measure for children with allergic disease: development, validation and results from integrated care