RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Fidelity to the healing relationship: a medical student's challenge to contemporary bioethics and prescription for medical practice JF Journal of Medical Ethics JO J Med Ethics FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Institute of Medical Ethics SP 224 OP 228 DO 10.1136/medethics-2013-101718 VO 42 IS 4 A1 Blake C Corcoran A1 Lea Brandt A1 David A Fleming A1 Chris N Gu YR 2016 UL http://jme.bmj.com/content/42/4/224.abstract AB As a medicalĀ  student, I observed that different physicians had strikingly different attitudes and approaches when caring for patients. The care of one patient in particular continues to challenge my understanding of illness and moral responsibility in the practice of medicine. In this paper, I illustrate the care of this patient in order to evaluate the dominant ethics I was taught in medical school, in theory and in practice, and argue neither principlism nor the ethics of care fully captures the moral responsibility of physicians. Emphasising fidelity to the healing relationship, a core principle derived from Pellegrino's virtue theory, I conclude that this approach to clinical ethics fully explains physician responsibility. Pellegrino deconstructs the practice of medicine to clarify the moral event within the clinical encounter and offers a sufficiently useful and justified approach to patient care.