Integrity

(Side note: This essay was written in response to a lecture about integrity. The funny thing was, I had to cut that class because I wasn't feeling that well so I had to rely on 2nd hand accounts of the lecture so that I know what the lecturer was talking about. Anyway, what I've written is not just for the sake of passing the class but it comes from the heart. Who knows, maybe someday I'll come back to this post if ever I feel like giving up or taking shortcuts detrimental to a patient's health and life.) 

            Integrity is something that is important in all aspects of life. It is not the sole monopoly of medical doctors yet due to the high expectations placed upon medical doctors; it is highly stressed upon us. For instance, a doctor without integrity will easily prescribe drugs just because the drug company gave him a huge financial incentive without even thinking of the possible side effects that the patient can experience due to the drug. Worse, it might not even be indicated for the patient’s condition.

               However, integrity is not something that is easily passed on or easily taught. It is not something that can be learned through a class. It is something experienced and observed. Also, it is something that is imbibed meaning that a person must choose to embody integrity. And in choosing to do so, that person must have a very deep reason for embodying an abstract yet important idea.

                Practically, a medical doctor with integrity will be visited by more patients because he can be trusted to give cost-effective medical interventions without being swayed by the pharmaceutical companies. On a much deeper level, said medical doctor can sleep better at night because he did not place any human being in harm’s way. Either way, a medical doctor with integrity is a full-fledged medical doctor.

                But then what does it mean to embody integrity? The most important thing is that this is an ongoing question that the medical doctor must answer everyday of his life. This question is re-asked and re-answered whenever new situations arise to combat the medical doctor’s values or outlooks on medical practice. That is not to say that integrity is limited to the medical practice. It is not. The question of integrity permeates even outside of the medical doctor’s practice. It permeates the life and relations of the medical doctor. Even the simple act of being on time for every appointment, however small a gesture, is already an act of integrity. And yet integrity is a question. It is something that is redefined and cannot be sequestered into a well-defined box.

                Finally, integrity can be likened to an ongoing re-evaluation in the sense that it requires re-updating of one’s outlook and values. To put it more concretely, what may seem an act of integrity then can be an act without integrity today. No act can really be defined as full of integrity for definitions will invariably exclude the person who will execute said act. One can only be guided by his own values and other human being’s own values. It is important that a medical doctor always strives to better himself. In the fullest sense of this phrase: a medical doctor is not just a medical doctor.