20 minutes

Aims

To show students that:

1. Ethics and law are key elements in clinical decision making.

2. Ethical analysis is an intellectually stimulating endeavour.

3. Brief overview of course and sources of help in developing medical ethics

4. Importance of patient confidentiality

Objectives

1. To help students to recognise that there are ethical and legal issues in medical practice.

2. To provide students with the opportunity to discuss some ethical issues briefly with others.

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This is a brief session (usually about 20 minutes) that takes place in a large lecture theatre  with all students (about 120 in the year 2005) on the first or second day of year 4 (i.e. of the new intake of clinical students). It is essentially a ‘taster’ for the course in medical ethics and law. Over the first few days the students attend a large number of introductory lectures, many essentially orienting lectures (e.g. about the library services). They tend to remember only an impression of the lecture.

Suggested structure

0-2 mins:          Welcome.

                        Introduce: me; Mike Parker.

                        4 aims of this session (see overhead)

2-7 mins:          Introduction

                        Medical ethics frequently in media

                                    Recent examples (e.g. conjoined twins; saviour siblings)

                        Medical ethics also important in locally, and in ordinary medical practice

                                    Elderly person with dementia [overhead]

                                    **Pregnant woman with HIV from poor African country

                                                Doctors want to give good care (for mother and fetus)

                                                Managers under pressure not to fund (no entitlement)

                        Ethical dilemmas part and parcel of clinical practice

                                    Medicine rich and exciting area

                                    Combination of science and humanities

                                    To help patients through difficult times.

7- 15 mins:       Recent media case*

                                    Brief material on overhead (such as BBC website headlines)

                                    Pose question(s) or task

                                                Students to answer in discussion in pairs (3 mins)

                                                Plenary discussion – get main points/arguments up

                                                Summarise: ethical disagreement part of practice

15-17 mins:      Overview of course**

                        Topics (overhead); main aims

                        Weblearn as source of text-books etc. and all session handouts

                        The Ethox Centre

17-20 mins:      Students on wards

                        See overheads: consent for examining; confidentiality.

* Recent cases have been: saviour siblings (2003); and girl of 15 years who had abortion without parental knowledge (2004).

** These parts may be omitted in order to give more time for the discussion of media case and the key points about students on wards.