16 It is your company that counts

The Farmer and the Stork: A farmer set traps in his corn field to catch the cranes that ate up the corn seeds. When he returned in the evening, he found a stork among several cranes that weretrapped. The stork said, "I do not eat corn seeds. I am a stork, not a crane. Please set me free.” The farmer replied, "I do not care who or what you are. These cranes ruin my crops. You are in their company. So you shall also be punished like them."

A specialist centre doing plenty of transplants got notoriety for exploitative and unethical handling of donors. Dr Rahman was the first assistant of the surgical team. He was disturbed by the bad media reports about his centre but kept his concern and feelings to himself.

Once, a Police Commissioner set a trap and exposed the 'transplant scam'. The whole team involved in the procedure including Dr Rahman was arrested. Dr Rahman said, "I only assisted in the surgical procedures. I had no other role.” The Commissioner replied, "I have to put you all in. You have been a part of the team. Let the court decide on the individual responsibilities," and took him away with the others.

Comments

Assume that you are a part of a team that may be indulging in unethical acts. It is easy to disown personal responsibility if you are not doing the abominable parts of the activity like misguiding an organ donor or exploiting the recipient. You may well think, "I am

49

only assisting in a lifesaving surgical procedure. I am not involved in anything else.” While this rationalisation may be true to some extent, you may be charged with vicarious responsibility or with abetment of nefarious acts.

Does it mean that you should play the role of a conscientious objector and blow the whistle? Your employer may prefer to label you as a rat, a mole or a traitor and make your life miserable. I had a first-hand experience of this as a junior consultant in a cardiology unit. The head of the unit used to admit persons with a normal heart for some experiments on them that involved cardiac catheterisation (the passage of a small tube into different chambers of the heart) and giving them stiff doses of some drugs. Whenever I was the admitting doctor, I used to inform them of the procedures involved and naturally all but those who desperately needed a medical certificate of health, refused to get admitted. Soon, I was labelled as a person fit only to be in a primary health centre and was advised to quit. I did not quit but blew the whistle and spilt the beans to the administration. Since they wanted no bad publicity by such unethical experiments, the unit-head was asked to leave the centre. The whole episode left a bad taste and I quit working in a tertiary care set up.

Long term studies in USA have revealed that whistle-blowing resulted in economic bankruptcy, emotional deprivation, disruption of career and family life and personal abuse (Soeken K, 1987). The whistle blowing stems from the moral motive of preventing unnecessary harm to others. (Bowie N, 1982) But the motive is often accompanied by a 3-way conflict: The professional ethic requiring collegial loyalty clashes with responsibility to the public. The third element is the fear of retaliation (Callahan D, 1980).

This conflict has been classically dealt with in the great epic, Ramayana. Vibhishana, the brother of Ravana, overcomes the loyalty-trap and crosses over to Rama's side. Kumbhakarna, on the other hand, chooses the path of loyalty rather than morality and prefers to die in the battle that ensues. The former was wise and the latter, brave. We are left to choose our own path dictated by our personal values and morality.

50