This change has led to increased specialization in an attempt to avoid errors in action by knowing more and more about less and less. The portrait of medicine in modernity that Dr Hauerwas has painted for us is provocative and sobering. In my opinion and that of many others, however, this perspective is limiting given the complex, multicultural environment in which we live. One test of a system's ethics could be its accessibility to all people when they need guidance in making difficult personal or professional decisions and choices. In our work at Allina Health System, ethics is emerging as the science and practice of values-connected decision making.
Ethics embodies the transcendent virtues of patience, trust, love, and relationship.
This view of ethics gives rise to a new definition of and emphasis on diversity, because it calls for beliefs and values to be exposed and then respected. In regard to medicine, for example, members of the American Medical Association, American Nurses Association, American College of Health Care Executives, and managed care organizations have developed ethical principles and rules that they have codified in oaths, codes of conduct, and policies. They accomplished this by participating in a process through which they relied on their beliefs to reach consensus about right and wrong and responsibility. What constitutes an ethical corporate culture is now being examined as well. Ethics cannot exist in the absence of data and a commitment to caring.