A medical curriculum in transition: audit and student perspective of undergraduate teaching of ethics and professionalism

IntroductionThe General Medical Council (GMC) stipulates that doctors must be competent professionals, not merely scholars and practitioners. Medical school curricula should enable students to develop professional values and competencies. Additionally, medical schools are moving towards integrated u...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of medical ethics 2017-11, Vol.43 (11), p.766-770
Main Authors: Saad, Toni C, Riley, Stephen, Hain, Richard
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitude
Audits
Bioethics
College students
Core curriculum
Curricula
Curriculum
Education
Education, Medical, Undergraduate
Ethics
Ethics, Medical - education
Health education
Humanities
Humans
Learning
Medical colleges
Medical ethics
Medical research
Medical schools
Medical students
Medicine
Patients
Physicians
Professional Competence
Professional employees
Professional workers
Professionalism - education
Software
Students
Students, Medical
Study and teaching
Surveys and Questionnaires
Teaching
Teaching and learning ethics
Values
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Items that cite this one
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Summary:IntroductionThe General Medical Council (GMC) stipulates that doctors must be competent professionals, not merely scholars and practitioners. Medical school curricula should enable students to develop professional values and competencies. Additionally, medical schools are moving towards integrated undergraduate curricula, Cardiff's C21 being one such example.MethodsWe carried out an audit to determine the extent to which C21 delivers GMC professionalism competencies, and a student questionnaire to explore student perspective on ethics and professionalism.Results and discussion C21 delivers explicit or implicit teaching for all major GMC competencies, though some missed opportunities remain. The questionnaire responses showed that most students value ethics and professionalism teaching, and that it is most well received when delivered in a variety of ways and contexts throughout the curriculum. We also note that some respondents confuse ethics and professionalism with the policing of student behaviour.Conclusions C21 and curricula like it offer many opportunities for nurturing ethically and professionally competent physicians. Students appear to value this, though there remains confusion between medical school discipline and ethics and professionalism which needs further explication.
ISSN:0306-6800
1473-4257
DOI:10.1136/medethics-2016-103488