Awareness of ethical issues in medical education: an interactive teach-the-teacher course.
We conducted an international, interdisciplinary teach-the-teacher course to sensitize physicians from different countries to ethical issues in medical education. The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of this course.



Before and after participating in a short session on ethical issues in medical education, 97 physicians from different countries in Africa, Asia, and Europe completed a self-assessment questionnaire on their competence and interest in this field. The short session consisted of working in small groups to identify, analyze and discuss ethical dilemmas described in case vignettes adapted from published examples or written by medical students. In addition to the questionnaire, we conducted a large-group experience to explore four basic orientations of participants in ethical thinking: relativism, intentionalism, consequentialism, and absolutism.



We found a significant self-perceived increase in the participants' ability to identify and describe ethical issues and students' dilemmas, in their knowledge about these issues and teaching professionalism, and in their ability to describe both students' perspectives and teachers' and students' behaviors. In addition, participants' feeling of understanding their own culturally learned patterns of determining what is right and wrong increased after taking part in the course. The four contrasting basic ethical orientations showed no significant differences between participants regarding nationality, age, or gender.



Ethics of education is an important issue for medical teachers. Teachers' self-perceived competence can be increased by working on case vignettes in small groups.
Hospital of the University of Magdeburg (OvGU), Department of General, Visceral and Vascular Surgery, Magdeburg, Germany.
Costanza
C
Chiapponi
Hospital of the University of Munich (LMU), Department of Neurology, Munich, Germany.
Konstantinos
K
Dimitriadis
Hospital of Aalen, Department of Gynaecology, Aalen, Germany.
Gülümser
G
Özgül
Munich School of Philosophy, Munich, Germany.
Robert G
RG
Siebeck
Hospital of the University of Munich (LMU), Department of General, Visceral, Vascular and Transplantation Surgery, Munich, Germany.
Matthias
M
Siebeck
D000349:Africa; D001208:Asia; D004501:Education, Medical; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D005060:Europe; D006801:Humans; D013337:Students, Medical
culturally learned patterns; ethics; medical education; moral decision-making