Collegiality: what is it?

The privileges of members of the academic medical collegium consist of the following: freedom to pursue medical knowledge, performance of therapeutic interventions, opportunity to instruct, freedom to engage in experimentation, and to share in the expression and communication of medical knowledge with colleagues. The obligations are the same as those of the purely academic collegium mentioned above. Additionally, there are the obligations specific to the medical collegium: the care and cure of the sick, fulfillment of the moral covenant to the patient, to guarantee the life cycle of medical ideas, to assure academic critique in medicine, the stewardship of medical knowledge, and adherence to a professional code. We feel that the relationship among medical colleagues adheres to a codified set of duties, one that can be objectively relied upon to protect the endangered species of American academic medicine, the collegial environment.