Science 20 June 2008:
Vol. 320. no. 5883, pp. 1587 - 1588
DOI: 10.1126/science.320.5883.1587b
A Graduate Student OathThe Hippocratic Oath, recited by medical school graduates worldwide, is arguably the best-known professional honor code. This centuries-old oath instills a commitment to altruism, professionalism, honesty, skill, knowledge, duty, loyalty, and fraternity among medical doctors. The positive impact of the Hippocratic Oath has inspired other professional oaths, notably in schools of pharmacy, dentistry, engineering, physical therapy, veterinary medicine, osteopathy, and law.
The realities of the nuclear age, more frequent acts of bioterrorism, and biotechnological advances such as cloning and stem cells have fueled a call for a similar oath tailored to biomedical scientists that would encourage awareness and discussion of the social and moral responsibilities of students in the life sciences (
1-
4). At the Institute of Medical Science (IMS), Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, as elsewhere, there is rising recognition of the potential for academic misconduct, in part due to the computer and Internet age, in which there is free access to and exchange of information derived from anonymous sources. Another factor is the increasingly competitive nature and "pressure cooker" milieu of scientific training programs due to the pace of scientific progress. Finally, there is the perception that current students take plagiarism, misrepresentation of facts, and scientific fraud less gravely than did previous generations of scientists. Clearly, the time is ripe to consider improved strategies for instilling basic values about acceptable and expected behavior (
5,
6). We created an oath to be recited voluntarily at the first meeting of each year's new graduate student body in IMS. We specifically chose to hold the oath ceremony at the entry point to graduate studies rather than at graduation day in order to introduce students to these concepts early. In constructing our oath, we took a simple but holistic approach to emphasize three aspects of scientific training at the graduate level: community, professionalism, and ethical conduct, through declarations of pride, integrity, and pursuit. The text of the Institute of Medical Science Graduate Student Oath follows. "I, [NAME], have entered the serious pursuit of new knowledge as a member of the community of graduate students at the University of Toronto. "I declare the following: "Pride: I solemnly declare my pride in belonging to the international community of research scholars. "Integrity: I promise never to allow financial gain, competitiveness, or ambition cloud my judgment in the conduct of ethical research and scholarship. "Pursuit: I will pursue knowledge and create knowledge for the greater good, but never to the detriment of colleagues, supervisors, research subjects or the international community of scholars of which I am now a member. "By pronouncing this Graduate Student Oath, I affirm my commitment to professional conduct and to abide by the principles of ethical conduct and research policies as set out by the University of Toronto." Our inaugural oath ceremony was held in 2007. We felt it was essential to provide each student with a booklet of information and a personal copy of the oath. The Oath Booklet contained the oath and its purpose; excerpts and Web references to various university codes and policies governing student and ethical conduct; the Canadian Tri-Council policy statement on integrity in research and scholarship; and a reproduction of a speech on science and society by Canadian Nobel Prize recipient John Polanyi (
7). To enhance and solidify the ideals embodied in the initiation oath, we also have infused the IMS graduate training program with additional information provided in a variety of formats. For example, currently, our first-year students attend a mandatory seminar course that includes lecture material on issues of scientific misconduct, including plagiarism. In addition, each new student is required to complete the NIH (
8) or Canadian Tri-Council (
9) online course on ethics. We propose that a graduate student oath should constitute a standard requirement of life science graduate programs. This oath should be the cornerstone of a programmatic series of information modules addressing issues of community, professionalism, and ethical conduct provided by the graduate department and reinforced throughout the student's training by their faculty mentor.
Karen D. Davis*
Institute of Medical Science
Faculty of Medicine and School of Graduate Studies
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada Department of Surgery
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON M5G 1L5, Canada Toronto Western Research Institute
University Health Network
Toronto, ON M5T 2S8, Canada *To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
kdavis@uhnres.utoronto.ca Mary V. Seeman
Institute of Medical Science
Faculty of Medicine and School of Graduate Studies
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada Department of Psychiatry
University of Toronto
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
Toronto, ON M5T 1R8, Canada
Josie Chapman
Institute of Medical Science
Faculty of Medicine and School of Graduate Studies
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada
Ori D. Rotstein
Institute of Medical Science
Faculty of Medicine and School of Graduate Studies
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada Department of Surgery
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON M5G 1L5, Canada Keenan Research Centre
Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute
St. Michael's Hospital
Toronto, ON M5B 1W8, Canada
References and Notes - N. L. Jones, Sci. Eng. Ethics 13, 25 (2007).
- J. Howard, Nature 312, 96 (1984).
- J. Rotblat, Science 286, 1475 (1999).
- J. Revill, M. R. Dando, EMBO Rep. 7 Spec. No., S55 (2006).
- N. H. Steneck, Sci. Eng. Ethics 12, 53 (2006).
- B. Glass, Science 150, 1254 (1965).
- J. Polanyi, "Science, ethics, and human destiny," speech given at the 1999 Couchiching Institute on Public Affairs Conference, 6 August 1999; www.utoronto.ca/jpolanyi/public_affairs/.
- NIH Office of Extramural Research, Protecting Human Research Participants (PHRP) course; http://phrp.nihtraining.com/users/login.php.
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Introductory Tutorial for the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS); www.pre.ethics.gc.ca/english/tutorial/welcome.cfm.
- We thank S. Pfeiffer, Dean of Graduate Studies, for an inspirational address at the oath ceremony and M. Liu for encouragement
- 