ASCO Core Values

Abstract

American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) membership is strong, diverse, respected, and growing. With approximately 450 new members each quarter, ASCO has grown to more than 23,500 members, one quarter of whom are international members from over 100 countries. The membership, Board of Directors, and 22 committees are supported by close to 200 full-time staff and a foundation. In conjunction with ASCO’s 40th anniversary and in acknowledgment of ASCO’s tremendous growth, the 2003 Board of Directors re-examined ASCO’s 1999 Strategic Plan, consisting of a mission statement, organizational goals and objectives, and core values. In this context, the Board asked the Ethics Committee for advice on refining ASCO’s Core Values. The Ethics Committee decided, with Board approval, to reaffirm the Core Values from 1999, but to rephrase them in order to articulate them more clearly to our members, associates, and patients. In this article, the Ethics Committee reports this Board-approved restatement of the Core Values. Practitioners of medicine and medical research face particular challenges today. Medicine must retain its essential character of caring for the sick and relieving human suffering, while acting as a responsible steward of society’s limited resources. Medical research must retain its integrity by focusing on the discovery of truth and the improvement of outcomes, whether funded by for-profit or not-for-profit sponsors. As medical practitioners and researchers discover more powerful tools, both must ask, “Even though we can, should we?” Core values—fundamental, enduring, deeply held beliefs—anchor our decisions in a changing world. Core values are not new to medicine. Although the contemporary literature on core values, often directed primarily at corporations, is informative, medicine’s core values are “ancient virtues distilled over time.” The fifth century BC Hippocratic corpus began this distillation. While discussing a series of clinical cases, Hippocrates coined the famous ethical dictum, “As to diseases, make a habit of two things—to help and not to harm,” demonstrating the integration of the practice of medicine and ethics. The early Hippocratic descriptions of physician decorum are not merely prescriptions of proper etiquette, but rather always include acting virtuously; a decorous physician embodies integrity. These same themes, care for the patient and integrity in all actions, are echoed throughout medicine, from Galen (the second century Roman physician), to Cyprian (the third century bishop of Carthage), to Avicenna (the tenth century Islamic physician), to Maimonides (the twelfth century Jewish physician), to Percival and Gregory (the late eighteenth century British physicians). Nor is this a Western phenomenon. Both Buddhism and Confucianism extol the virtue of compassion for those who suffer. “These similarities across very different cultures and eras make one wonder whether there may not be some inherent and universal moral atmosphere that surrounds the work of caring for the sick and pervades that work, regardless of culturally diverse moral systems.” ASCO stands in this ancient medical tradition with our restatement of Core Values. ASCO has also joined with our contemporary peers in an endorsement of an articulation of the principles and commitments associated with medical professionalism.