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JME40: Good medical ethics

PAPER

Suffering, compassion and ‘doing good medical ethics’

Paquita C de Zulueta

Correspondence to ABSTRACT suffering. The shock—disgust even—generated by

Dr Paquita C de Zulueta, ‘Doing good medical ethics’ involves attending to both the abnormal stillborn baby eclipsed their sensitiv-
Primary Care and Public
Health, Imperial College, the biomedical and existential aspects of illness. For this, ity towards her plight. Instead they focused on car-
Imperial College Charing Cross we need to bring in a phenomenological perspective to rying out correct forensic procedures. I have a
Campus, Reynolds Building, the clinical encounter, adopt a virtue-based ethic and recollection of timorously trying to comfort her
St Dunstans Road, London W6 resolve to re-evaluate the goals of medicine, in particular and of feeling that this was the right thing to do.
8RP, UK;
the alleviation of suffering and the role of compassion in My teachers did not prescribe it and arguably I was
[email protected]
everyday ethics. ‘stepping out of line’. I certainly was not doing any-
Received 14 October 2014 thing ‘medical’. I could not bring back her baby
Accepted 22 October 2014 from the dead, but I could at least offer a gesture
A young woman is rushed into hospital by ambu- of companionship, of comfort, as a fellow human
lance to the labour ward. She is 28-weeks pregnant being.
and alone. Her waters have broken, and she says I give this example precisely because it does not
she cannot feel the baby moving. The midwives represent a ‘challenging ethical dilemma’, yet
cannot detect a heartbeat. They deliver her baby undoubtedly was an event that the woman will
rapidly and competently. A paediatrician and a never forget—nor, I suspect will she forget how
medical student are also present. The baby emerges those around her treated her. I would like to think
stillborn and grossly deformed, his body bloated that callous or unkind behaviour in healthcare is
and his head misshapen. A dark swelling protrudes something of the past, but alas, the evidence from a
from his chest. After rapid delivery of the placenta variety of sources—anecdotes, the media, as well as
and checking that the mother is physically stable from published narratives, formal inquiries and aca-
and comfortable, the baby is whisked away to a demic papers suggest otherwise. I propose that for
side room. The clinical team cluster around the life- the scholarship of medical ethics to translate into
less body, whispering instructions and counter good ethical medical practice, it has to attend more
instructions. Horror hangs in the air. Meanwhile, closely to everyday ethics and the clear and uncon-
the woman, plump and helpless, lies on the bed— troversial goal of medicine: the relief of suffering.
marooned, alone, tears slowly coursing down her Furthermore, medical ethics has to be placed
cheeks. The student looks up and sees this. She within a philosophical framework that ‘works’ in
detaches herself from the group and hesitantly the context of the lived experience of patients and
approaches the woman. She gently takes the clinicians. This, I will argue, is best served by the
woman’s hand lying limply by her side. No words restoration of virtue ethics, bringing in a phenom-
are spoken. The woman squeezes the student’s enological perspective to clinician–patient encoun-
hand in silent gratitude. ters, including narrative and imagination, and
acknowledging the value of emotions in clinical–
ethical decisions and responses. We need to remind
INTRODUCTION
ourselves constantly what restores or retains human
This narrative is one of many I partook in as a
dignity and the potential for the misuse of power
medical student and junior doctor which showed
in the practice of medicine.1 2 Without this,
me the unintended harm that doctors and nurses
medical ethics risks becoming another method for
could do to patients in their emotionally laden
creating alienation, moral disengagement and the
responses. I witnessed doctors getting angry,
reification of humanity, with all the dangers that
blaming or insulting patients, being cold and
this entails.3 4
callous, lying, failing to explain, being patronising
or simply not noticing distress or not listening to
what patients were telling them. I also witnessed MEDICAL ETHICS AND THE GOALS OF
kindness, tolerance, patience and sensitivity. These MEDICINE
observations, perhaps oddly, gave me the strong Some ethicists have described the goal of clinical
motivation to study and later to teach medical ethics (also known as ‘medical ethics’) as the
ethics. At that time ethics was not part of the improvement of the quality of patient care by iden-
medical school curriculum. We learnt from our role tifying, analysing and attempting to resolve the
models, from hearing their deliberations, but above ethical problems that arise in practice, with ethics
all what they said and how they behaved in their integral to the practice of medicine.5 They earlier
encounters with patients, colleagues and students. expressed the hope that clinical ethics ‘will have
In the above narrative, one could perhaps fault the achieved its rightful place at the interstices of rela-
To cite: de Zulueta PC. clinicians for not carrying out a specific duty or tions between patients who are sick and physicians
J Med Ethics 2015;41:87– protocol, but what stood out for me was the lack of who profess to be able to heal or comfort them’.6
90. attentiveness to the woman’s desolation and A review 11 years later led to the conclusion that
de Zulueta PC. J Med Ethics 2015;41:87–90. doi:10.1136/medethics-2014-102355 87
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JME40: Good medical ethics

important improvements had been made in ethics processes, but correlate with skills in deception.22 Deliberative decision
the goal of improved clinical outcomes had not been achieved.5 making can make us less altruistic and compassionate.23 This
Others reached a similar dispiriting conclusion: that there was leads to another lacuna in much of the discourse and teaching
no firm evidence that medical ethics education led to ethical of medical ethics: the emotional dimension.24 In this context,
behaviour in clinical practice.7 The reason that medical ethics emotions are often viewed as a hindrance, rather than an aid, to
may not be as successful in its outcomes as in its processes—the making sound decisions.25–27 The revival of virtue theory,
latter an extensive body of scholarship and vibrant discourse, as which incorporates emotions within rational ethical decision
shown in this journal—may be due to the neglect of issues dis- making, the inclusion of philosophical emotion theory28 and
cussed below. ‘Medical ethics’ covers a range of meanings and it neuroscientific knowledge29 in clinical ethics are thankfully
is timely to consider which of these are useful guides for foster- reversing this trend.30–32
ing healing relationships.
The neglect of everyday ethics
THE MISSING DIMENSIONS IN MEDICAL ETHICS Medical ethics tends to favour the dramatic or complex ‘dilem-
The need for virtue ethics mas’. While recognising that medical ethics needs a broader
The traditional view of medical ethics as a collection of pre- canvass,33 I advocate for a greater focus on the multiple encoun-
scriptions and prohibitions, so-called ‘code ethics’, such as the ters between clinicians and patients (and their families) that
General Medical Council’s guidance Good Medical Practice8 form the bulk of medical ethics. ‘Microethics’ is ‘not just the
does not describe how these rules are to be followed, or even terrain of rare spectacular cases involving heroic decisions’, but
clearly articulate why they should be, apart from creating trust. I the field of ‘day-to-day communication and structured, complex
do not discount the value of trust,9 but the deeper question of interactions, of subtle gestures and fine nuances of language.’34
how such codes promote the goals of medicine remains unex- Ethics emerges from a process of dialogue involving philosophy,
plored. Code ethics is incoherent unless placed within a compre- personal values, cultural assumptions and political and religious
hensive theory of human morality and is described as ‘the beliefs. Within this dialogue new meanings are created and indi-
archeological ruins of a doctrine of medical virtue’.10 Ethics is viduals define who they are. During conversations between
also depicted as tools to be picked up or discarded depending doctors and patients, ethical decisions are interwoven with tech-
on the situation at hand. We now have ‘medical ethics for nical decisions in a dynamic iterative process. This perspective
dummies’11 and ‘toolkits’ for dealing with ethical dilemmas.12 shifts the focus from abstract discourse to an exploration of the
These may be valuable and useful to busy clinicians, but they messy world of intersubjectivity within which moral decisions
convey the notion that ethics is a simple acquisition of technical are made. Clinicians need to connect with the lived experience,
skills, rather than a more demanding (and life-long) requirement the ‘lifeworld’ of their patients.35 ‘Conversational ethics’ values
to develop, hone and practise the virtues, to take responsibility and recognises our social embeddedness and the moral signifi-
as moral agents and to fully acknowledge the humanity of cance of the individual and of reflection.36 37
others. Ethics-as-tools renders moral thought and action extrin-
sic to individuals’ identity.13 Furthermore, rules and tools Suffering
simply cannot address core features of clinical ethics—the It is troubling that patients and laypersons consider the relief of
dynamic relationships between clinicians and patients, the desir- suffering to be one of the primary ends of medicine, yet the
able attributes of clinicians or how emotions and reasons are medical profession neglects it.38 This neglect is attributed to the
intertwined at the clinical encounter and in clinical–ethical deci- mind–body dichotomy in medical theory and practice.
sion making. They ignore the indeterminacy and contingency of Furthermore, the dichotomy is asymmetrical, with the sciences
life and fail to take into account how institutional culture—‘the viewed as ‘hard’ and the humanities ‘soft’, creating a ‘double-
hidden curriculum’13—or the sociopolitical zeitgeist can influ- blinded dichotomous clinical gaze’.39 We are social, embodied
ence ethical humane practice.14 creatures and this can predispose us to suffering. Persons suffer
Compassion, in brief, cannot be readily accommodated within from what they have lost of themselves. Cassell’s rich multi-
a utilitarian, Kantian or even rights-based ethical theory. In con- layered concept of suffering relates this loss to any facet of per-
trast, it fits naturally within neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics15 and sonhood: one’s life story, plans or hidden dreams, relationships,
is gaining support in medical ethics discourse.16 17 The healing particular roles or spirituality. Suffering is experienced with the
relationship can provide the phenomenological grounding for a lost capability to do enjoyable or routine activities or to partici-
normative ethic based on the virtues.18 Medicine, within this pate in the political realm. ‘The body is no longer seen as a
paradigm, represents a social practice with complex cooperative friend but, rather, as an untrustworthy friend’.40 The ‘latent’
activities that yield goods internal to the practice. These, unlike role of the clinician is to ‘lend strength’—show solidarity—apart
external goods, enrich the whole community and are achieved from easing the burden of illness with medical or surgical
by the flowering of the virtues. Personal identity and integrity interventions.41
are founded on a life narrative that we tell ourselves and that
we share with others as part of a larger shared tradition. Existential neglect
A large empirical study in a hospital setting revealed how the bio-
Moral reasoning and the evasion of emotion medical focus over-rode important existential aspects of the con-
Another oft-stated goal of medical ethics, proficiency at moral sultation—the personal and human dimensions of the patients’
reasoning, although important, does not necessarily translate suffering, their feelings and meanings—were systematically
into ethical behaviour.19 Between the intellectual problem excluded. The doctors were courteous, but showed little interest
solving in the abstract and facing the concrete reality of persons, or curiosity about the patients as individuals. Rather, patients
there may be a disconnect.20 Bridging this divide requires a were treated as medical objects and often more attention was
dynamic interplay between detachment and engagement, cogni- paid to the computer than to them. The researchers describe this
tion and emotion and a capacity for self-awareness and honest disregard for the patients’ humanity as a ‘moral offence’.42 A
reflection.21 Aptitude in moral reasoning may even sometimes study in general practice yielded similar findings with the
88 de Zulueta PC. J Med Ethics 2015;41:87–90. doi:10.1136/medethics-2014-102355
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JME40: Good medical ethics

patients’ lifeworld often blocked or ignored.43 Yet creating fictional.54 Some argue that etiquette may suffice for good
‘caring conversations’ which recognise the patient as person does medical practice.53 55 Certainly, adherence to etiquette could
not require added time or effort, but greater attentiveness.44 ensure courtesy and may even foster the habituation of some
Patients’ narratives describe existential neglect and how this virtues, but will fail to address existential issues, or give guid-
intensifies suffering. Sweeney,45 faced with a terminal illness, ance for responding to distress.41 56 Contrary to broadly-held
poignantly relates how fellow doctors ‘showed a hesitation to be belief, the enactment of compassion is rewarding, not deplet-
brave’ and lacked a ‘willingness to accompany him in the ing. ‘Compassion fatigue’ stems from a lack of self-compassion
kingdom of the sick’. He describes how the transactional aspects and unbalanced, unreflective emotional empathy (with which
of his care were timely and technically impeccable, but that the it is often confused), not compassion.57 There is, Aristotle
relational aspects were often sadly lacking, leaving him feeling would argue, a ‘golden mean’.58 Compassion alone is insuffi-
abandoned. Carel46 describes a nurse’s cold indifference to her cient for healing and needs to be unified with the other
distress when discovering that her lung function has undergone a virtues, particularly discernment, temperance and phronesis or
rapid decline. She does not ask for ‘ feel-good chatting’ but practical wisdom.58
wonders if the encounter has to be ‘so impersonal, so guarded’—
cannot some ‘genuine care’ be brought in? The lament ‘Why am
I not treated as a person?’ is almost universal. The answer is CONCLUSION
complex, but suffice to say that we can only claim to be ‘doing Compassion is a central and necessary element of good
good medical ethics’ by responding well to both medical needs medical care and integral to good medical ethics. Compassion
and existential suffering.47 is both humble and powerful. It is subversive because it
eschews hierarchy and privilege and runs counter to the liber-
COMPASSION AND SUFFERING tarian, market-orientated industrialised medicine of today. It is
Compassion needs to be able to respond to all the dimensions embedded in a framework of reciprocity and shared meanings
of suffering and to respect the dignity of the person and not and is underpinned by an ethic of virtue. It demands both the
slide into pity and condescension. For at the core of the con- recognition of our common humanity and the honouring of
cepts of morality and human dignity is the idea that human the individual narrative. Compassion views humans as inter-
beings are not reducible to objects, but are morally valuable and dependent and vulnerable, with autonomy textured by our
unique. milieu and relationships. It responds to, but does not generalise
What do we mean by compassion? Compassion is complex suffering. Above all, it connects with our better selves and
and includes cognitive, affective and motivational elements. It is what it means to be human.
a capacity that is innate and linked to our evolutionary sur- Competing interests None.
vival.48 The two definitions below convey the main elements—
Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.
noticing, feeling and responding. Also critical is the capacity to
tolerate distress (equanimity) such that another person’s suffer-
ing does not overwhelm and lead to avoidance or denial.
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90 de Zulueta PC. J Med Ethics 2015;41:87–90. doi:10.1136/medethics-2014-102355

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Suffering, compassion and 'doing good

medical ethics'
Paquita C de Zulueta

J Med Ethics 2015 41: 87-90

doi: 10.1136/medethics-2014-102355

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