Character strengths profiles in the specific setting of medical professionals are widely unchartered territory. This paper focused on an overview of character strengths profiles of medical professionals (medical students and physicians) based on literature research and available empirical data illustrating their impact on well-being and work engagement. A literature research was conducted and the majority of peer-reviewed considered articles dealt with theoretical or conceptually driven ‘virtues’ associated with medical specialties or questions of ethics in patient care (e.g., professionalism, or what (...) makes a good physician). The virtues of compassion, courage, altruism, and benevolence were described most often. Only a limited number of papers addressed character strengths of medical students or physicians according to the VIA-classification. Those articles showed that the VIA-character strengthsfairness, honesty,kindness, andteamworkwere considered most often by respondents to be particularly important for the medical profession. Available cross-sectional (time span: six years) and longitudinal (time span: three years) data regarding VIA-character strengths profiles of medical professionals were analyzed (N= 584 medical students, 274 physicians). These profiles were quite homogenous among both groups. The character strengthsfairness,honesty,judgment,kindness, andlovehad the highest means in both samples. Noteworthy differences appeared when comparing medical specialties, in particular concerning general surgeons and psychiatrists, with the former reporting clearly higher levels of e.g.,honesty(d= 1.02) orprudence(d= 1.19). Long-term results revealed significant positive effects of character strengths on well-being and work engagement (e.g.,perseveranceon physicians’ work engagement) but also significant negative effects (e.g.,appreciation of beauty and excellenceon students’ well-being). Further,hopewas significantly associated both positively with physicians’ well-being and negatively with students’ work engagement, possibly indicating specific issues concerning medical education or hospital working conditions. According to the modern-day physician’s pledge, medical professionals should pay attention to their own well-being and health. Therefore, promoting self-awareness and character building among medical professionals could be a beneficial strategy. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 3, March 2020, Page 73-74.

The purpose of this paper is to utilize virtue ethics as the appropriate paradigm by which to improve health care delivery to transgender individuals. Health disparities for transgender individuals occur external to the medical environment as well as internal to the medical profession. A commitment to virtue ethics should be undertaken to improve the care to transgender individuals. In this manuscript I call on virtue ethics to address the intersectionality of such environmental structures for the promotion of the good of (...) the patient as per the telos of medicine by Edmund Pellegrino, consistent with the eudaimonia of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Virtue ethics is the appropriate paradigm for which bioethics can address the framework that poses barriers to access to health care and maintenance of health through a lack of competent, knowledgeable and compassionate providers for the transgender population. Further, I pose that ascribing to improving the care to the individual transgender patient involves a call to action to overcome social ecological spheres of influence that are affecting the health of the individual and thereby the population of the transgender individuals as a whole. Through virtue ethics, the virtuous physician improves the health of the transgender individual and the character of themselves and the profession of medicine. (shrink)

To enhance patient care in the inevitable conditions of complexity that exist in contemporary healthcare, collaboration among healthcare professions is critical. While each profession necessarily has its own primary focus and perspective on the nature of human healthcare needs, these alone are insufficient for meeting the complex needs of patients (and potential patients). Persons are inevitably contextual entities, inseparable from their environments, and are subject to institutional and social barriers that can detract from good care or from accessing healthcare. These (...) are some of the reasons behind current movements to develop competency frameworks that can enhance cross‐disciplinary communication and collaboration. No single profession can claim the big picture. Effective teamwork is essential and requires members of diverse professions to understand the nature of each other's knowledge, skills, roles, perspectives, and perceived responsibilities so that they are optimally utilized on behalf of patients and their families. Interdisciplinary approaches to care permit different aspects of a person's needs to be addressed seamlessly and facilitate the removal of obstacles by engaging the range of resources exemplified by the different professions. Additionally, collaborative efforts are needed to influence policy changes on behalf of individual and social good and to address root causes of poor health especially as these impact society's most vulnerable. Here, we explore both the benefits and the risks of an uncritical acceptance of competency frameworks as a way to enhance interdisciplinary communication. We highlight the importance of anchoring proposed competency domains in the reason for being of a given profession and exemplify one way this has been accomplished for advanced practice nursing. Additionally, we argue that having this mooring, permits integration of the various competencies that both enhances professional moral agency and facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration to further the mutual goals of the healthcare professions on behalf of quality patient care. (shrink)