Professional Ethics

for Biomedical Engineers

HS-219

Dr. Syed M. Wasim Raza

drsmwasim@neduet.edu.pk
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics

WEEK TOPICS List of Material Assignment/Quiz

No. to be Uploaded Plan

1. Introduction to Professional & Engineering Ethics Lecture Slides

2. Introduction to Professional & Engineering Ethics Lecture Slides
3. Introduction to Professional & Engineering Ethics Lecture Slides
4. Moral Reasoning & Ethical Frameworks Ethical Dilemma Lecture Slides Assessment
5. Moral Reasoning & Ethical Frameworks Ethical Dilemma Lecture Slides
6 Moral Reasoning & Ethical Frameworks Ethical Dilemma Lecture Slides
7. Moral Reasoning & Ethical Frameworks Ethical Dilemma Lecture Slides
8 Contemporary Professional Ethics Lecture Slides Assessment
9. Contemporary Professional Ethics Lecture Slides
10 Contemporary Professional Ethics Lecture Slides
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics

❑ Ethics:
❖ Ethics is the study of the characteristics of morals and involves the moral
choices made by individuals as they interact with other persons
❖ Engineers need to be aware of ethics as they make choices during their
professional practice of engineering
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics

❑ Ethics:
➢ The philosophical study of what is right or wrong in human conduct and
rules or principles should govern it. Hence the term is singular. This is often
subdivided into meta-ethics, applied ethics and professional ethics
❖ Meta-ethics: The systematic study of the nature of ethics.
➢ This looks into issues such as how an ethical judgement can be
justified and the possible theoretical underpinning of ethical
reflection and practice
❖ Applied Ethics: The application of ethics in a particular area of
practice, e.g. business or biomedical-ethics
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics

❑ Morality
➢ Morality often refers to standards of moral conduct – right behavior. In the
history of philosophy there have been many attempts to differentiate the
concept from ethics. However, it is most often used interchangeably with the
term ‘ethics’, which is how we will use it
❑ Engineering Ethics: Engineering ethics is defined in the two ways:
➢ The study of moral issues and decisions confronting individuals and
organizations involved in engineering.
➢ The study of related questions about moral conduct, character and
relationship involved in technical development
➢ The rules and standards governing the conduct of engineers in their role as
professionals
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics
❑ Professional Ethics
➢ Consider the following statements, all of which rely on a different meaning
of the term:
❖ Muhammad Ali became a professional boxer in, after fighting for
six years as an amateur
❖ That painter sure did a professional job, don’t you think
❖ Prostitution is the world’s oldest profession
❖ You can count on Johar gardening: we are the most professional in
town
❖ Sami sure is a professional complainer
❖ Did you hear Madiha passed her licensing exam and is now a
professional engineer
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics
❑ Professional Ethics
➢ Despite some clear overlap, the meaning attached to the different uses
vary so much that no single ethic conversation could effectively apply to
all – the specific ethical duties attached to professional boxing, for
example, differ widely from those of engineering
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics

❑ Professional Ethics
➢ A set of standards defined by the professional community which provides a
guide for behavior that is expected from the professional
➢ Professionalism and ethics are twins, inseparably bound together in the
concept that professional status and recognition must be based upon
public service under a higher duty than mere compliance with the letter of
the law
➢ Ethics provides the framework within which engineers may work
➢ The voluntary assumption of a higher duty imposed by individual conscience
is the root principle of ethics
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics

❑ Professional Ethics
➢ Biomedical Engineering is an important and learned profession
➢ As members of this profession, engineers are expected to exhibit the
highest standards of honesty and integrity
➢ Biomedical Engineering has a direct and vital impact on the quality of life for
all people.
➢ Accordingly, the services provided by biomedical engineers require
honesty, impartiality, fairness, and equity, and must be dedicated to the
protection of the public health, safety, and welfare
➢ Biomedical Engineers must perform under a standard of professional
behaviour that requires adherence to the highest principles of ethical
conduct
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics

❑ Professional Ethics
➢ The ethical identity, codes and practices of particular professions, such as
the professions followed by nurses, doctors, lawyers or engineers
➢ A set of standards defined by the professional community which provides
a guide for behaviours that is expected from the professional
➢ Professionalism and ethics are twins, inseparably bound together in the
concept that professional status and recognition must be based upon public
service under a higher duty than mere compliance with the letter of the law
➢ Ethics provides the framework within which biomedical engineers may
work
➢ The voluntary assumption of a higher duty imposed by individual
conscience is the root principle of ethics
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics

❑ Professional Ethics for Biomedical Engineers

➢ Helps to:
❖ Understand the moral values that ought to guide the Engineering
profession,
❖ Resolve the moral issues in the profession, and
❖ Justify the moral judgment concerning the profession
➢ It is intended to develop a set of beliefs, attitudes, and habits that
engineers should display concerning morality
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics

❑ Professional Ethics for Biomedical Engineers

➢ Improvement of the cognitive skills (skills of the intellect in thinking
clearly)
❖ Moral awareness (proficiency in recognizing moral problems in
engineering)
❖ Cogent moral reasoning (comprehending, assessing different
views)
❖ Moral coherence (forming consistent viewpoints based on facts)
❖ Moral imagination (searching beyond obvious the alternative
responses to issues and being receptive to creative solutions)
❖ Moral communication, to express and support one’s views to
others
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics

❑ Professional Ethics for Biomedical Engineers

➢ Act in morally desirable ways, towards moral commitment and responsible
conduct
❖ Moral reasonableness i.e., willing and able to be morally responsible
❖ Respect for persons, which means showing concern for the well-being
of others, besides oneself
❖ Tolerance of diversity i.e., respect for ethnic and religious differences,
and acceptance of reasonable differences in moral perspectives
❖ Moral hope i.e., believe in using rational dialogue for resolving moral
conflicts
❖ Integrity, which means moral integrity, and integrating one’s
professional life and personal convictions
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics

❑ Professions and Professionals

➢ To be a professional is to be an expert, skilled at the provision of vital
services, while also holding a normative commitment to their clients’
well‐being
➢ Professionalization enabled the relevant groups to assure clients that they
can trust that their practitioner had the relevant expertise and ethical
commitment
➢ Activities like medicine and law became professions by reacting to newly
emerging vital needs and by formally defining the criteria necessary for
being identified as a member of the group
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics

❑ Profession and Professionals

➢ Central to those criteria is trust
➢ The client must be
❖ Able to trust the system to have granted an imprimatur only to
those with proper training and character;
❖ Also needs to trust that a particular professional has the requisite
skills and will not abuse her power by taking advantage of him
emotionally, physically, or economically
❖ He needs to trust that the professional is there for him, first and
foremost, and not there just to make money
➢ Professional colleagues also need a similar level of trust – again, in the
system and in the individual – so as to feel confident about referrals or
collaborative management of a client’s problem
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics

❑ Profession and Professionals

➢ For such trust to be present, a number of other necessary criteria must be
satisfied, as they provide the structural conditions that make trust possible
➢ Four of those criteria are essential, that is, all must be met, at least to a
large degree, in order for the activity to be considered a formal profession.
➢ Others are common features that are typically present in traditional
professional client relationships, generally as a consequence of the
fulfillment of the essential criteria
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics
❑ The Essential features
❑ The activity must address a vital need
➢ Vital needs include physical and emotional health and associated
protection from factors – human and natural – that could threaten either;
the freedom to pursue interests; economic stability; spiritual guidance; and
education.
➢ Because humans value these so deeply, we feel particularly vulnerable
when they are threatened. Hence the need for a genuine expert – a
professional
❑ The members of the profession must receive extensive education and training.
Some of the abilities necessary to be a competent professional – for example,
empathetic engagement and listening skills – emerge from life experience and
good parenting, but others come only through formal education and
apprenticeship
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics

❑ The Essential features

❑ There must be self‐regulation by the members of the profession, usually
overseen by a professional organization, with associated credentialing including
development of the standards that educational programs must satisfy in order
to be accredited to teach professionals‐in‐training, determination of the
knowledge and skills one must satisfy to receive credentialing or licensing, and
punishment of licensed members who fall below the standards, in terms of
either expertise or ethical character
❑ In addition to the group authority and control granted by self‐regulation,
individual members also have considerable autonomy over how they practice
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics

❑ The Profession of Biomedical Engineering

➢ There is the satisfaction of watching a figment of the imagination emerge
through the aid of science to a plan on paper
➢ Then it moves to realization in stone or metal or energy
➢ Then it brings jobs and homes to men
➢ Then it elevates the standards of living and adds to the comforts of health
and life
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics

❑ The Profession of Biomedical Engineering

➢ The great liability of the biomedical engineer compared to men of other
professions is that his works are out in the open where all can see them
➢ His acts, step by step, are in hard substance
➢ He cannot bury his mistakes in the grave like the doctors
➢ He cannot argue them into thin air or blame the judge like the lawyers
➢ He cannot, like the architects, cover his failures with trees and vines
➢ He cannot, like the politicians, screen his shortcomings by blaming his
opponents and hope that the people will forget
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics

❑ Biomedical Engineering
➢ The “medical” part of biomedical engineering implies a strong link between
the medical and the engineering professions. Like engineers, medical
practitioners apply the basic sciences to achieve results. Thus, our designing of
devices and structures is part of the larger health care provision

Biomedical Engineers are part of the

system of Health care
➢ In fact, some of the major advances in devices have come about through the
close relationships with medical practitioners, such as the collaborations
between teaching hospitals and biomedical engineering programs
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics

❑ The Profession of Biomedical Engineering

➢ The life aspects of biomedical engineering are, for the most part, the major
success stories of engineering. For example, more than any other profession,
engineers have prevented (in some cases, eliminated) devastating diseases
with their public works projects, such as wastewater treatment, sanitary
landfills, hazardous waste facilities, air quality controls, and drinking water
supplies.

Biomedical engineers sometimes need to

be reminded that their work serves life
 Introduction
Profession and Ethics

❑ ENGINEERING BIOETHICS AND MORALITY

➢ Biomedical Engineering incorporates the most basic and most complex
algorithms, that is it involves science and people
➢ Humans are quite complex
➢ Since biomedical engineering is a human enterprise, it should come as no
surprise that applying the sciences to solve human problems is a complicated
business