The erosion of justice and the moral necessity of professional dissent

The colloquy stimulating this response has, at its root, the behaviour of the individual healthcare practitioner. Our response suggests the need for a more holistic, system based approach where the individual is couched within a context that includes the relationships of the work, the working environment and the society within which all are situated. We explore this concept basing our arguments on the four pillars of bioethics – beneficence, non-malevolence, autonomy and justice. We provide a view on the influence of contextual features and how these might provoke professional behaviour change, commenting on the rightness and professional necessity of shifting our stance and communication methods.