Science vs. Vocation: Problems of Modern High Education and Clinical Practice in Russia
Dmitry A. Balalykin, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Chairman of Medical History, National History and Culturology Department, Chairman of Local Ethical Committee, I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University
Nataliya P. Shok, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of Medical History, National History and Culturology Department, I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University
Many years of experience teaching students at medical university’s courses such as The History of Medicine, Bioethics and Culturology, alongside practical training at an Independent Ethics Committee provide a unique approach to the study of these disciplines. During the lecturing there is the necessity to explain to students historical and bioethical issues following the rule of “how it should be?”. As well as the work experience at the Ethics Committee of the University that has an attached clinical facility with more than one thousand beds and the student’s practical work allows to perceive the situation “how it really is”. Therefore, the name of the lecture covered by Maximilian Weber, regarding the approach of the modern clinical practice, could be retitled to “Science or Vocation”. In such context the following immediate issues arise:
1. The experience of one’s own profession by students and physicians in the light of presentism. As a consequence there is a loss of ethos towards the profession, essential and spiritual content of the physician’s professional duty as a “social services”. Therefore there is a necessity of forming the studying process as an attempt to present to students and postgraduates students the sense of a unified ethical heritage as is stated in the Hippocrates Oath. It is extremely important to model the studying of The History of Medicine as a science on the ground of the understanding of the cognitive and epistemological unity of our profession.
2. The Soviet tradition of state repressions toward the Church led to the reality that the religious rights of the patient were not acknowledged as vital or worthy of respect. For such matter, on the level of the expert professional society we struggle for the legalization of “the right of access” to treatment for the preventatives of various confessions.
3. During the studying and practical work at the Ethics Committee we are guided that the rejection of euthanasia and abortion have been the inviolable “red lines” for biomedical ethics since the time of the Hippocrates Oath till our days.
4. Formulating the educational agenda for the Russian medical universities, we insist on the necessity to consider the religious traditions during the initial stages of interaction between the physician and the patient. In Russia, there is a Federal Law in which it is stated that “Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism are recognized as traditional religions inherent to the Russian Cultural Code”. We have the aim for the widest development and application of this Federal Law in quotidian clinical practice and medical education.
5. The issue of taking patient’s religious views into consideration during the planning of the basic clinical studies, including pharmaceutical, is an extremely difficult one.
But there is hope that students and young physician-scientists that are under our influence will be able to look at their own profession as at a vocation, despite a commercial aspect of the research practice.
Nataliya P. Shok, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of Medical History, National History and Culturology Department, I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University
Many years of experience teaching students at medical university’s courses such as The History of Medicine, Bioethics and Culturology, alongside practical training at an Independent Ethics Committee provide a unique approach to the study of these disciplines. During the lecturing there is the necessity to explain to students historical and bioethical issues following the rule of “how it should be?”. As well as the work experience at the Ethics Committee of the University that has an attached clinical facility with more than one thousand beds and the student’s practical work allows to perceive the situation “how it really is”. Therefore, the name of the lecture covered by Maximilian Weber, regarding the approach of the modern clinical practice, could be retitled to “Science or Vocation”. In such context the following immediate issues arise:
1. The experience of one’s own profession by students and physicians in the light of presentism. As a consequence there is a loss of ethos towards the profession, essential and spiritual content of the physician’s professional duty as a “social services”. Therefore there is a necessity of forming the studying process as an attempt to present to students and postgraduates students the sense of a unified ethical heritage as is stated in the Hippocrates Oath. It is extremely important to model the studying of The History of Medicine as a science on the ground of the understanding of the cognitive and epistemological unity of our profession.
2. The Soviet tradition of state repressions toward the Church led to the reality that the religious rights of the patient were not acknowledged as vital or worthy of respect. For such matter, on the level of the expert professional society we struggle for the legalization of “the right of access” to treatment for the preventatives of various confessions.
3. During the studying and practical work at the Ethics Committee we are guided that the rejection of euthanasia and abortion have been the inviolable “red lines” for biomedical ethics since the time of the Hippocrates Oath till our days.
4. Formulating the educational agenda for the Russian medical universities, we insist on the necessity to consider the religious traditions during the initial stages of interaction between the physician and the patient. In Russia, there is a Federal Law in which it is stated that “Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism are recognized as traditional religions inherent to the Russian Cultural Code”. We have the aim for the widest development and application of this Federal Law in quotidian clinical practice and medical education.
5. The issue of taking patient’s religious views into consideration during the planning of the basic clinical studies, including pharmaceutical, is an extremely difficult one.
But there is hope that students and young physician-scientists that are under our influence will be able to look at their own profession as at a vocation, despite a commercial aspect of the research practice.