Preclinical Ethics Curriculum?

[aymar]

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Do other schools have an Ethics class in their curriculum that includes essay tests? At my school they include Ethics on exam days.... which I personally think is insane

Does anyone else's school do the same thing?

 

[NotaCop]

Yup. Easy A but a waste of time. No real way around it... the alternative is multiple choice which I think is an even worse way to assess an ethics course. Of course you could just do no exams period but that tends to scare the admins...

 

[Lannister]

We don't do essay tests but we do have ethics questions on our multiple choice exams.
Ethics are important, and many med students are a lot worse at ethics than they think. Plus there are ethics questions on step 1 so there's that.

 

[Crayola227]

yep mine did all of what you said

I think it's fine

it's hardly rocket science, and IMO, hardly something that can be cut from the curriculum

it still pisses me off to this day how much students will whine that these courses aren't needed, when all it takes is like 3 hours in a workroom or on SDN to see how essential they are

 

[Styrene]

We have a non-science class that includes some ethics, but we are not really tested on it. All our tests are computerized multiple choice, anyway, except for gross anatomy.

 

[Save a life]

We have ethics with essay assignments and multiple choice tests. Easy class with interesting lectures.

 

[aymar]

it still pisses me off to this day how much students will whine that these courses aren't needed, when all it takes is like 3 hours in a workroom or on SDN to see how essential they are

not at all arguing that ethics as a course is unnecessary. I actually enjoy our class discussions, and have definitely been challenged to think about scenarios that I never would have previously considered. I just think that being graded on how well I use the "appropriate ethical frameworks" in an essay format is a bit ridiculous

 

[Redpancreas]

not at all arguing that ethics as a course is unnecessary. I actually enjoy our class discussions, and have definitely been challenged to think about scenarios that I never would have previously considered. I just think that being graded on how well I use the "appropriate ethical frameworks" in an essay format is a bit ridiculous

I think a student should be assessed on ethics in two ways. One is similar to the USMLE where you tailor multiple choice questions to learning points. The second should be essays and/or presentations that should be assessed using narrative feedback and not solely based "use of the appropriate ethical framework", but how well you organize your thoughts in an essay or how you project your points in an oral presentation. The latter is subjective, but still important because I personally think the level of people skills taught in medical school are waning. It annoys me that everyone whines about the subjectivity and how everything needs to be quantified objectively, but in reality student's will be slapped with subjective evaluations in M3 and subjectivity will increase from there. Why not just start from day 1 when everyone's anticipating a change rather than in the middle of medical school. Your ability to function in the real world depends more on the latter than the earlier skills.

 

[Cura_te_ipsum]

Do other schools have an Ethics class in their curriculum that includes essay tests? At my school they include Ethics on exam days.... which I personally think is insane

Does anyone else's school do the same thing?

Step 1 has many questions that encompass ethics and professionalism. You should pay attention to developing a personality that employs ethics in everyday living. Philosophy courses in high school, college and personal religious convictions / readings help.

My school offered a class in "Professionalism" yet the point was made by many: you either learned ethics as a kid or you did not have it instilled. a casual look at our current cultural climate (USA) tells us everything - we have a society that is off the chain when it comes to right reason and ethical leaders.

And yet here we are ...we are the real crazies for believing we can fix the mess we find ourselves. But we will try anyways.