Who is a good physician? Ethical Code of the Czech Medical Chamber as a normative text for contemporary bioethics

Abstract

The article analyzes the Ethical Code of the Czech Medical Chamber within a philosophical and historical context and aims to rehabilitate its significance for contemporary medical theory and clinical practice. Traditional deontological readings of the Code are identified as problematic, and a perspective of reading the code through the conceptual tools of Virtue Ethics and Ethics of Care is presented. Through this perspective, the Code can be read as a contribution to the discussion of what constitutes medicine and who is a good physician. The analysis of the first five articles of the Code shows that the physician should be a person who possess and exhibit certain moral dispositions (virtues), especially care, practical wisdom, and courage, in order to meet the demands placed on them by the Code. The article thus presents the Code as a relevant normative text applicable in contemporary bioethics, whose critical reflection enables us to enter into the discussion of who is a good physician, a pivotal question for both medical theory and clinical practice.