You as a civil litigation lawyer or insurance claims manager have a big interest in the objectivity of\u00a0the experts you retain and the opinions they render.\u00a0 Ethics is an element in objectivity.\u00a0 Knowing the sources of pressure on objective and ethical conduct – the bottom line is one source – guards against compromise.\u00a0 Educating professional people\u00a0early in their career\u00a0on these issues would seem to be\u00a0a good idea.<\/p>\n
This update reflects informative comment from three readers of the initial posting on this topic published\u00a0September 17, 2012.\u00a0\u00a0The initial item expressed concern – after I read two articles in an engineering periodical, about the\u00a0pressure on professional engineers to do good work when\u00a0being retained by\u00a0others whose objective is to make money.<\/p>\n
Professor Chris MacDonald, who blogs on\u00a0business ethics, and is\u00a0widely and well regarded, noted that\u00a0the “problem of the employed professional” is a standard one in all the textbooks on professional ethics.\u00a0 One business ethics course that he used to teach spent a couple of weeks on the problem (C. MacDonald, Phd).<\/p>\n
Ms. Barbara Bleasdale, who lectured in a school of nursing on the east coast for more than 25 years, thinks the bottom line rules in healthcare decisions as well\u2026.and the ethical dilemma causes some nurses to leave the profession as they are not always supported in doing the right thing (B. Bleasdale, RN).<\/p>\n
Dr. John Hughes, a retired consulting professional engineer, noted the size of the larger consulting firms today – many, many 100s of\u00a0professional engineers as\u00a0opposed to a few dozen a few decades\u00a0ago.\u00a0 He is of\u00a0the\u00a0view – shared by a senior colleague, John Ackerly, P.Eng. who consults to large international firms, that this does not promote responsibility for\u00a0good design.\u00a0 The company and it’s employed engineers\u00a0are essentially sheltered behind the limited company rules.\u00a0 Basically, one has to return to the small, “private company” in which each\u00a0professional engineer\u00a0takes responsibility for the success of the firm, including the professionalism exhibited by the employed engineer (J. Hughes, Phd).<\/p>\n
The problem of the “employed engineer” is\u00a0particularly relevant\u00a0in forensic engineering.\u00a0 Ethics is an element in the objectivity we must bring to our engineering investigations, and to the judicial system when we are called as experts – witness civil procedures Rule 55 in Nova Scotia.<\/p>\n
I was initially taken by two articles in the Fall Newsletter of APENS, The Engineer, that could be summarized by the following comments: “…engineers found guilty of misconduct.<\/em>..” and “…skills engineering schools should teach<\/em>“.<\/p>\n The article about skills<\/strong> caught my attention first.\u00a0 It was entitled, The Top 5 Skills Engineering Schools Should Teach<\/em>, and was written by Natalie Cornelius, P.Eng. It was\u00a0admirable that Natalie took time to draw attention to skills practicing engineers\u00a0need and to initiate a discussion about these.\u00a0 I agree with some of what Natalie writes but not all.\u00a0 She identifies the following skills:<\/p>\n I agree wholeheartedly with the first, believe the second is being addressed well enough in university now – maybe too much,\u00a0and believe the remaining three are not fundamental enough for a university program in engineering.<\/p>\n I believe a skill that Natalie might have included was Verbal Communication.\u00a0 I also believe – and this has been reinforced by the responses to my initial posting, that the awareness of engineers should be raised, as soon as\u00a0possible in their careers,\u00a0about professional ethics and the pressures on these.\u00a0 My list of skills might look like the following:<\/p>\n The reason for my views on the article are beyond the scope of this posting.\u00a0 But, I do think Natilie’s views on engineering curriculum could have been even more helpful if her article had also reflected the results of interviews with senior engineers in engineering disciplines, fields of practice, and life experiences other than her own.\u00a0 Experienced practicing engineers of all stripes have a lot to offer the universities on what they might be doing.<\/p>\n The article about engineers found guilty <\/strong>caught my attention second.\u00a0 It was entitled, Engineers who declared Lake Algo Centre Mall structurally sound, found guilty of misconduct in 2010<\/em>.\u00a0 This is the Elliot Lake Mall that collapsed and that I blogged about a few weeks ago (Cause of roof collapse at Elliot Lake, published July 10, 2012).\u00a0 The article in the APENS newsletter was originally published in The Globe and Mail on Saturday, July 14, 2012.<\/p>\n It was encouraging to see APENS carry this item about professional engineers who appear to have slipped up<\/p>\n It’s interesting that the engineer’s misconduct had something to do with engineering design and inspection.\u00a0 These were areas that I thought in my blogging were deserving of hypothesizing, particularly construction inspection.<\/p>\n I can’t help but think of the pressure some practicing engineers are under to do the right thing in their work.\u00a0 Few if any knowingly do wrong but we are human and occasionally let our guard down and inadvertently do the wrong thing.<\/p>\n Those of us who are in private consulting practice learn early on to be careful of some clients – I could identify but won’t, who leverage the smallest amounts of capital to dizzying levels, and the professional engineers who are under pressure to produce inexpensive designs and are swept along in this leveraging.<\/p>\n I’ve thought for some time – months if not two or three years, about the subtle pressure professional engineers are under who work for commercial firms and fiscally responsible bureaucracies where the bottom line rules.\u00a0 Some of these organizations are up to a 1,000 strong in professional staff.\u00a0 Most professional engineers work for small and large organizations like these.\u00a0 To some extent, engineering professionalism is threatened by the tyranny of the bottom line.<\/p>\n This conflict between the bottom line and professionalism has troubled me enough that I’ve thought to suggest to Chris MacDonald that he blog about ethics in the professions.\u00a0 Chris is a professor at Ryerson University in Toronto, formerly with Saint Mary’s University, who blogs about business ethics.\u00a0 Chris is extremely well recognized world wide in his field.\u00a0 I think professional ethics is a fertile field for a chap like him with his insight and knowlege.\u00a0 As noted above, it turns out that “the\u00a0problem of the employed professional” has been recognized at universities,\u00a0at least by\u00a0business schools,\u00a0and that\u00a0Chris has taught a course on\u00a0this subject.<\/p>\n In any event, to wrap this up, and get back to the two articles I saw in the APENS newsletter, I think a course worthy of an engineering curriculum would be one on professional ethics and the pressures on these ethics in our society.<\/p>\n Some of the young engineers will practice forensic engineering after they get a few decades of experience under their belts.\u00a0 I can tell you that ethics plays a particularly important role in forensic engineering.\u00a0 There is not a little pressure on a professional engineer to advocate for the client.\u00a0 There is also the normal pressure of a human being identifying with the underdog after the cause of a failure is known.\u00a0 These pressures threaten the professional engineer’s need to be objective as required by the courts.\u00a0 A course in ethics would raise the young engineer’s awareness of these pressures and help him\/her resist them.<\/p>\n References<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Your interest as a lawyer or\u00a0claims manager You as a civil litigation lawyer or insurance claims manager have a big interest in the objectivity of\u00a0the experts you retain and the opinions they render.\u00a0 Ethics is an element in objectivity.\u00a0 Knowing … Continue reading \n
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Relevance to\u00a0forensic engineering<\/h1>\n
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