Bengaluru: Ethical reasoning must across sectors, says RGUHS V-C

Bengaluru: Ethical reasoning must guide every clinical and policy decision and research project as the place of ethics in education and research is foundational, said Dr Bhagavan BC, Vice-Chancellor of the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), on Thursday.

Dr Bhagavan was speaking at the inauguration of the 13th International Ethics Education Conference at St John’s National Academy of Health Sciences, Bengaluru.

The three-day conference will focus on various aspects of ethical education, where educators, leaders and practitioners from various fields will address the ethical challenges of our time.

Delegates from 12 countries and across disciplines of philosophy, law, theology, medicine, engineering, bioethics, social sciences, climate sciences, and technology will be present.

Dr Bhagavan noted that RGUHS has introduced ethics education for this purpose in all courses, and will introduce mandatory modules on research ethics for PG students. 

Dutch ethicist Prof Henk AMJ ten Have, explained that ethics education is not merely to produce better professionals, but has a wider goal to produce citizens who live peacefully with each other and to cultivate humanity.

He noted that it focuses on improving three capacities — the capacity for critical examination of oneself and one’s traditions, the ability to see oneself as a human being bound to other human beings, and the ability to think what it might be like to be empathetic, to be an intelligent reader of another person’s story.

Ethics education should ensure that the youth in our country are compassionate, perfectionistic and inclusive, said Dr BN Gangadhar, Chairman, National Medical Council, India.

He said that learning the principle of doing no harm, which pervades all religions, is the cornerstone of learning medicine. “It is important to teach the student to see the patient as a whole, one with aspirations, dreams, a family and values, and not just his disease,” he said.