2009-The Physician of the Future English and Catalan

F UNDACIÓN E DUCACIÓN M ÉDICA (FEM) 72 2.10. A physician who embodies professionalism Physicians ought to embrace and fully live the professional ideal.Without giving up their right to leisure and enjoyment of family life, physicians with a professional vocation accept that the professional ideal impacts all facets of their life. Elitism, derived from meritocracy, a basic trait of the professional ideal and opposed to a misunderstood egalitarism, must be accepted without shame. Elitism, far from entailing greater privileges, demands a stronger commitment to higher ethical standards of service, whilst meritocracy, deriving from the principle of “equal opportunities” allows each to reach a level corresponding to e'orts and capacity demonstrated. It is well known that equality that fails to recognise di'erences, or, considering equal whatever is di'erent, constitutes a case of injustice and demoralisation. On completing basic education and specialist training, physicians should embark on a lifelong learning process that will enable them to attain optimal levels of professional performance and a constant enhancement of their skills to provide services at current scienti"c- professional standards. Hence, physicians must strive for excellence avoiding decay in their performance over time. Lifelong learning and continuing professional development are basically ethical responsibilities of physicians, although under current working conditions the employer also shares in part this commitment. Shi%ing the primary obligation of professional development to the employer and neglecting one’s own commitment to it damages the professional image of medicine. Physicians ought to continually and critically re&ect on their own performance so as to permanently improve it and accept that, as stated by the Academy of Medicine in its renown report “ To Err is Human” , learning from errors is the best preventive strategy and that attitudes of error denial are not conducive to improvement.