How many organs should one patient receive? The ethics of transplantation in the medical school.
BACKGROUND
Interest in the humanities in the medical school is growing; while several medical schools, mainly of Anglo-Saxon background, have developed dedicated courses, the experience in Italy is limited.


METHODS
Since the academic year 2000 to 2001, a discussion of ethical problems was implemented in the nephrology course (fourth year of the Medical School of Torino, Italy; overall 6 years). In 2002 to 2003, a case entitled "Retransplantation of Multiple Organs (Prog Transplant 2002)" was discussed in 2 hours of small-group tutorial teaching: a boy received a renal graft at age 5, failed at age 7 due to recurrent glomerulonephritis, required a heart-kidney graft at age 11, and a second heart-kidney graft at 17. Student opinions were gathered by anonymous semistructured questionnaires at the beginning of the lessons as a basis for discussion.


RESULTS
Following the lessons all students returned the questionnaires (n = 104). In the absence of competition for allocation, retransplantation was approved by 76.2%, unacceptable for 1% (22.9% uncertain-blank). With a waiting list of 10 patients, the opinions changed: 32.4% approved transplantation, 6.7% didn't approve it, 60.9% were uncertain. A theoretical categorization into deontological or utilitaristic approaches favored the first (41.9% vs 26.7%), with a high prevalence of blank-uncertain (31.5%); 21.9% of the students would change their opinion was that study head of the Transplant Department.


CONCLUSIONS
Ethical aspects of the medical profession have been discussed with interest by medical school students; the high prevalence of uncertain answers and requests to develop specific tools underline the importance of this educational approach.
Piccoli
G B
GB
Cattedra di Nefrologia, Dipartimento di Medicina Interna, Università di Torino, Torino, Italy. gbpiccoli@yahoo.it
Soragna
G
G
Putaggio
S
S
Burdese
M
M
Longo
P
P
Rinaldi
D
D
Bergamo
D
D
Mezza
E
E
Consiglio
V
V
Novaresio
C
C
Gai
M
M
Motta
D
D
Malfi
B
B
Giacchino
F
F
Jeantet
A
A
Segoloni
G P
GP
D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D016030:Kidney Transplantation / Q000941:ethics*; D012577:Schools, Medical; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods; D019737:Transplants / Q000941:ethics*