Medical ethics represents the morality and affection of physicians who accompany patients, share every pain, encourage every effort and rejoice in every small progress of the patient. Practicing medical ethics is always the sacred duty of physicians, doctors and health workers.
The speech of General Secretary To Lam on the morning of February 24 when visiting and working with the Ministry of Health on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of Vietnam Doctors' Day (February 27, 1955 - February 27, 2025) highlighted and praised the health sector for its breakthroughs in improving the quality of treatment, applying high technology and developing modern medicine, achieving many important achievements in increasing life expectancy and improving the quality of life for people. However, the General Secretary also frankly pointed out: In addition to the achievements and achievements, the issue of medical ethics in the sector is a requirement that needs to be addressed, "somewhere there are still doctors and people in the medical sector who are dishonest in their practice, even have poor professional ethics, lack of responsibility towards patients, discrimination in medical examination and treatment, lack of responsibility, indifference to the pain of patients, profiteering, putting material interests above the responsibility of doctors".
From there, the General Secretary identified the urgent requirement for each doctor, cadre and worker in the health sector, in addition to doing their job well, to improve their medical ethics, to implement Uncle Ho's teachings well, to raise awareness of respecting and protecting the lives and health of patients. It is especially necessary to be fair in treating patients and to build "a health system suitable to the needs of our people" as President Ho Chi Minh wished in his Letter to the Conference of Health Workers exactly 70 years ago.
The guiding opinions of General Secretary To Lam inherited President Ho Chi Minh's thesis on medical ethics and compassion of doctors. On January 8, 1947, in the Letter praising wounded soldiers and the dedication of doctors, nurses, and paramedics, President Ho Chi Minh used the word "hospital" [1] . Later, he used the word "hospital" many times when talking about hospitals. He wanted to remind that: Hospital - that is a big house, where there is love, where patients receive spiritual support from doctors in addition to the support of medical expertise. Doctors not only have the noble duty of "being soldiers fighting the sick" - as he said, but also must be people who have compassion, care, and support the spirit of patients like a kind mother - "a good doctor is like a loving mother".
Modern technical means and advanced treatment methods are indispensable, but all must be operated with the love and responsibility of the physician. This can be clearly seen in concrete practice. With the characteristic that the majority of patients of the Acupuncture and Healing Department (Central Hospital of Traditional Medicine) need a long-term treatment and recovery process, requiring both patients and doctors to be determined and persistent in order to have good recovery results. Thanks to perseverance and a lot of empathy, the physicians in the department have brought confidence to those who had fallen into despair, helping them practice doing things that they previously thought they could never do again.
In her practical work, Dr. Tran Thi Hai Van, Department of Acupuncture and Health Care, believes that: It is the empathy, companionship, sharing, and help of doctors that have contributed to the motivation for patients to try harder to achieve good treatment results. According to Dr. Tran Thi Hai Van: “Practicing medical ethics is not something lofty or beyond reach… In treatment, just think about the treatment first, think about others first, don't think about yourself first. It's that simple, but the hardest thing is to do it yourself.”
In the direction of General Secretary To Lam on the direction of solving challenges for the health sector, the issue of improving medical ethics is ranked second only to the requirement of renewing thinking in the health sector. Medical ethics has spiritual value, which is necessary before material conditions. It is the "heart" for the health sector to complete its tasks, fully implement the responsibility of taking care of people's health, so that doctors can truly be "mothers" in the minds of patients and society. To practice medical ethics, it is also necessary to ensure indispensable conditions such as gradually completing infrastructure, equipment, improving the quality of the working environment, and improving the effectiveness of medical examination and treatment in the health sector. These have also been clearly pointed out by General Secretary To Lam in the content of the tasks and solutions that we need to strive to implement in the coming time ■
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(1) Ho Chi Minh: Complete Works - National Political Publishing House, Hanoi, 2011, vol. 5, p. 16.
Source: https://nhandan.vn/chu-trong-nang-cao-y-duc-trong-giai-doan-moi-post862885.html
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