Should I read a medical ethics book to prep for interviews?

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I dunno if I'd call it a primer, but I really liked First, Do No Harm by Lisa Belkin. It might not help you much with interview questions, but it's a good read nonetheless.
 
Atul Gawande has an excellent, anecdotal piece called "Complications." I highly recommend it, it's a very quick read and is very intriguing. I know several medical schools which require it in their ethics curriculums for medical students.
 
ltdanp21 said:
Hi there,

Should I?

Can anyone recommend a good medical ethics primer.

Many, many thanks in advance.

Dan
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Why? You are either ethical or not. You should already know the answer.
 
flighterdoc said:
Why? You are either ethical or not. You should already know the answer.
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Holy knee-jerk reaction, batman. I hope you were kidding. For one thing, it is pretty difficult to have an informed opinion about a matter you have never pondered, and perhaps never even knew existed. And there is always the outside chance that in considering the arguments of the opposite side, your own opinions may change. But I wouldn't expect you to know anything about that.
 
i bought like 6 medical ethics books before interviews started. biggest waste of money, never opened up one of them.
 
samurai_lincoln said:
Holy knee-jerk reaction, batman. I hope you were kidding. For one thing, it is pretty difficult to have an informed opinion about a matter you have never pondered, and perhaps never even knew existed. And there is always the outside chance that in considering the arguments of the opposite side, your own opinions may change. But I wouldn't expect you to know anything about that.
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I would hope that anyone who is considering being a physician would have already pondered the moral and ethical implications of doing so. If they haven't, reading a book isn't going to do them any good. Even if they have, reading one book isn't going to do anything but give them one viewpoint to ponder.

If someone wants to investigate ethics then they should investigate more than one book.
 
Pence's Classic Cases in Medical Ethics is good.
 
You dont need ethics if your services are cheap enough. And I can afford to be cheap, because I dont have a lot of debt after going to the Hollywood Upstairs Medical School.
 
From my interview experiences I'd say no. If you're asked any sort of ethical question I really don't think you are going to need to have read a book to answer it.

and, yeah, complications is a good book. i was looking at it in barnes and noble and a woman told me she is a physician and that she loved the book, so i got it and just finished reading it. gawande writes some pretty interesting pieces in the new yorker too.
 
flighterdoc said:
I would hope that anyone who is considering being a physician would have already pondered the moral and ethical implications of doing so. If they haven't, reading a book isn't going to do them any good. Even if they have, reading one book isn't going to do anything but give them one viewpoint to ponder.

If someone wants to investigate ethics then they should investigate more than one book.
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That's not what you said the first time around, however, where you essentially reduced discussion of ethics to an inborn character trait. Which implies there is actually a right or wrong answer to such questions, which there is not.

And I think the important thing from an interview perspective is NOT the actual substance of your answer, but rather whether you have intelligently considered the topic and can formulate a cogent defense of your argument. To this end, a bit of prelim research can go a long way.
 
omg, someone suggested pence?!?!?!?!?!? That's the book I have. Cool.
 
being an ethical person has no bearing on answering an ethical question. you need to have an argument, and to have one, its always a good idea to understand where the other person is coming from.
 
IndyZX said:
being an ethical person has no bearing on answering an ethical question. you need to have an argument, and to have one, its always a good idea to understand where the other person is coming from.
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Yeah, what he said 😉 That's what I was trying to get at in a round about way. Damn these cocktails before hitting the club this evening.
 
safrat said:
omg, someone suggested pence?!?!?!?!?!? That's the book I have. Cool.
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I second Pence as well. A good read.
 
rather than spend time reading a book about medical ethics i'd suggest reading the news instead. i'm betting you can reason out a question about medical ethics. being aware of current events, especially with an election year, might be helpful. read up on kerry's and bush's platform regarding healthcare or something - i'd bet questions come up about that.
 
badgergirl said:
rather than spend time reading a book about medical ethics i'd suggest reading the news instead. i'm betting you can reason out a question about medical ethics. being aware of current events, especially with an election year, might be helpful. read up on kerry's and bush's platform regarding healthcare or something - i'd bet questions come up about that.
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Excellent suggestion badgergirl.
 
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