Teaching professional ethics to undergraduate medical students.
Abstract
Professional ethics is considered a very important component of medical education in recent times. It is about the moral conduct of medical personnel in a professional context. Teaching this subject in an undergraduate medical program is of prime importance as ethical issues are embedded in everyday professional life. It is thus important not only to provide students with a sound knowledge base of legal, moral and social aspects of this subject, but also to equip them with the much needed ethical reasoning and interactional skills right from the start of their professional life. A variety of teaching- learning strategies as well as assessment strategies have been tried in this regard, given the range of learning issues and objectives they are designed to cover. All have their own set of advantages and disadvantages. We describe here two such teaching- learning activities and their preferred assessment strategies most suited for the purpose mentioned herein.
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