Ethical issues in anesthesia: the need for a more practical and contextual approach in teaching

Teaching ethics to medical students is one of the current topics of major interest. Issues of ethics pertaining to anesthesia are unique. This article reviews these issues with respect to the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative periods. The author shares the experience of incorporating e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of anesthesia 2009, Vol.23 (3), p.409-412
Main Author: Hariharan, Seetharaman
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anesthesia - ethics
Anesthesiology
Anesthesiology - education
Anesthesiology - ethics
Critical Care Medicine
Emergency Medicine
Humans
Intensive
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Pain Medicine
Perioperative Care - ethics
Special Article
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Summary:Teaching ethics to medical students is one of the current topics of major interest. Issues of ethics pertaining to anesthesia are unique. This article reviews these issues with respect to the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative periods. The author shares the experience of incorporating ethical issues into every clinical scenario in the problem-based learning sessions of both undergraduate and postgraduate students. In addition to separate modules in didactic and clinical formats, incorporating the ethical aspects into every clinical problem has many advantages. This approach will stimulate students to ponder over the ethical dimension of every clinical scenario, and the reinforcement of this approach during teaching in the clinical setting may help in inculcating these qualities in the students. Additionally, this approach contextualizes these issues to the local and regional perspective, instead of lecturing on the ethical codes developed elsewhere.
ISSN:0913-8668
1438-8359
DOI:10.1007/s00540-009-0776-x