[ Medical School Resources | Appendices | ]
A survey in Academic Medicine found that 89% of trainees personally observed unethical conduct by residents or attending physicians. "Unreasonable demands beget unreasonable actions," one commentator writes. "A system that works people 100 hours a week and more propagates a vicious circle of ethical compromises."[37]
In a 1998 sampling of 1700 American second year residents, 46% saw others falsifying patient records; 70% saw others mistreating patients.[38] Over one fourth of the residents (28.6%) stated that they had been required to do something that they believed was, "immoral, unethical or personally unacceptable."[39] They, "Did something unethical 'to fit in with the team.'"[40]
From the Academic Medicine article:
Pressures to be efficient, look good, and to fit into the environment invited ethical corner-cutting. An underlying tension is whether to 'rock the boat' or be a 'team player' (for instance, even though she may harm a patient, a student performs a procedure when the attending tells her to because she fears offending him). Seeing that their learning often comes at the expense of patients is emotionally difficult, and pressures to fit in usually guarantee that such worries go unexpressed.[41]
Quoting from an article in Medical Ed