Corporate governance is the structure of rules, practices, and processes used to direct and manage a company.

The industrialization of the healthcare sector has proceeded at a rapid pace in recent years. Economics has been the driving force that has had broad implications for clinical practice.

Two ethical disciplines, bioethics, and business ethics, are relevant to this enterprise, requiring a resynthesizing for organizational change.

Bioethics has traditionally dealt with individual moral dilemmas of modern medical practice and research. At the same time, business ethics has been concerned with how corporations can incorporate an ethical perspective into business practices.

While bioethics has taken mostly an individualistic tact emphasizing autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice and failed to anticipate the development of a corporate approach to healthcare delivery, business ethics has struggled with a narrowly defined vision of its applicability in the business world.

Bioethics must deal with the healthcare industry's theoretical and practical aspects without turning all decisions into matters of individual preference, and therefore corporate governance should involve bioethicists. 

Dr. Fourie has been the managing director of Dr. Rentia Fourie Incorporated since 2021. 

More on Dr. Fourie’s involvement in corporate governance is coming soon…