Search

Purpose: Relationship boundaries recognition is an essential element of medical practice. The aim of the study was to assess final year medical students' perceived need for education regarding professional boundaries. Materials and methods: This was a cross-sectional study. An anonymous paper questionnaire was distributed to 128 final year medical students. Standard descriptive statistics, unpaired t-test to evaluate differences between male and female groups and Pearson correlation to determine relationships between variables were used. Results: The survey was completed by 84.4% of students who identified the need for more emphasis in the curriculum for all of topics during training and practice pertaining to boundaries and relationships (mean 6.61±1.32 on a scale of 0 to 9; and 6.66±1.27 respectively). Topics with a high interest ranking requiring additional attention were mistreatment of medical students (mean 7.22±1.96), coping with mistakes in clinical care (mean 7.25±1.63), reporting of medical mistakes (mean 7.58±1.36), and gender bias in clinical care (mean 7.10±1.82). Women perceived a greater need for attention to all topics in the curriculum. Significant differences between the perceptions of female and male students were observed regarding topics such as responding to an impaired colleague (p<0.001), and a physician's social responsibilities (p = 0.001). Conclusion: Medical students recognized the need for more education and training in the undergraduate medical ethics curriculum regarding patient-physician relationship boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Limited information exists regarding students’ routine educational needs in support of ethics and professionalism practices faced in real clinical practice. As such the authors aimed to explore medical students learning needs and preferences for informed consent and relevant ethical issues in the clerkship environments. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study using a self-administered, printed survey distributed to final year clinical clerks. Results: 84% completed the survey. Students indicated the need for more attention to all topics related to informed consent (mean = 7.1 on a scale of 0 to 9; ±1.2). Most additional instructional attention was requested for topics raised in discussions with patients concerning the risks, benefits and alternatives to recommended treatments (7.3 ±1.4). The cohort expressed the need for education in the care of vulnerable patients (7.2 ±1.2) with a maximum score for the care of abused children. Women perceived greater need for education concerning informed consent than male respondents (p>0.05). There were significant differences between students who scored high or low on the item “being treated in professional manner” and “endorsement of educational needs for care of adolescents” (p = 0.05). Conclusion: There was heightened perception among final year medical students of the need for greater attention to be paid to informed consent education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Ethics and professionalism are an integral part of medical school curricula; however, medical students’ views on these topics have not been assessed in many countries. Objective: The study aimed to examine medical students’ perceptions toward ethics and professionalism teaching, and its learning and assessment methods. Design: A self-administered questionnaire eliciting views on professionalism and ethics education was distributed to a total of 128 final-year medical students. Results: A total of 108 students completed the survey, with an 84% response rate. Medical students reported frequently encountering ethical conflicts during training but stated only a moderate level of ethics training at medical school (mean = 5.14 ± 1.8). They noted that their education had helped somewhat to deal with ethical conflicts (mean = 5.39 ± 2.0). Students strongly affirmed the importance of ethics education (mean = 7.63 ± 1.03) and endorsed the value of positive role models (mean = 7.45 ± 1.5) as the preferred learning method. The cohort voiced interest in direct faculty supervision as an approach to assessment of knowledge and skills (mean = 7.62 ± 1.26). Female students perceived greater need for more ethics education compared to males (p = < 0.05). Students who claimed that they had experienced some unprofessional treatment had a more limited view of the importance of ethics as a subject (P = 0.001). Conclusion: Medical students viewed ethics education positively and preferred clinically attuned methods for learning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]