Guest Post by Carolyn Johnston
BMJ Blogs
Originally posted on August 3, 2015
How interested are medical students in learning ethics and law? I have met students who have a genuine interest in the issues, who are engaged in teaching sessions and may go on to intercalate in ethics and law. On the other hand some consider that ethics is “just common sense”. They want to know only the legal parameters within which they will go on to practice and do not want to be troubled with a discussion of ethical issues for which there may not be a “correct” answer.
Ethics and law is a core part of the undergraduate medical curriculum and so in order to engage students successfully I need to know whether my teaching materials are relevant, useful and interesting. In 2010 I ran a student selected component in which MBBS Year 2 students created materials for medical ethics and law topics for pre-clinical students which they considered were engaging and relevant, so that students might go further than learning merely to pass exams. One student, Marcus Sorensen, who had managed a design consultancy focusing on web design and development before starting his medical studies, came up with the idea of a website as a platform for ethics materials for King’s students and he created the website http://get-ethical.co.uk.
The entire article is here.
