Altruism In Medical Research

An altruistic predisposition is one of the core faculties that inform ethical medical practice. Physicians are held in positions of trust, and are viewed as being socially and ethically contracted to act selflessly in service to persons under their care. Altruism in medicine therefore represents an ideal that is necessary in preserving the fabric of trust between physicians and their patients, as well as their perception of physicians as healers who place their health before any individual self-interest. This social contract is essential to the effective functioning of medicine. An erosion of this trust would represent a degradation of physicians’ ability to act as effective intermediaries between medical science and health. The origin of my

understanding of altruistic medicine began when, as a young man in my home country of Kenya, I witnessed the mission of Operation Smile, an organization that alters the life course of young children by providing free and safe corrective surgery to children born with cleft lip or cleft palate. This represented a novel concept to me because the social context I had grown up in up to that point, emphasized individualism and self-preservation, at the expense collective societal wellbeing. This state of affairs was precipitated the social and economic hardships most people in Kenya face to this day. The social safety nets that most people in the developed world are accustomed to are all but non-existent in a young developing nation like Kenya. Altruism in medicine therefore represents an ideal that should be fervently espoused and embodied by individuals seeking to join the medical profession.