Comparative Study of Medical Ethics Curriculum in General Medicine Course in 10Selected Universities in the World

Abstract

Background: The complexity of the current health system, the expansion of the range, and types of activities of the medical group members have caused the physicians to encounter daily with many ethical issues, and as a result, attention to the medical ethics curriculum in medical science universities ,in line with the increasing advances in science, has enhanced.The present study aimed to use the global experience through a comparative study of the medical ethics curriculum in a number of selected universities. Methods: This study compares the medical ethics curriculum in selected medical schools based on the Bereday model. .The top 10 Medical School, based on the Times Higher Education ranking system(THE),were selected , and the results presented in four levels of description, interpretation, juxtaposition , and simultaneous comparison . Results: This study showed that teaching medical ethics have various objectives in different medical schools and .A wide range of topics is taught in addition to using traditional teacher-centered strategies, such as lectures, new and active educational methods, such as discussion in small groups, independent student studies, and role play have been used. For assessing the student’s knowledge, written exams were the most used methods as well as measuring the students moral skills by self assessment tools and objective structured exams. Most of the medical schools adopted a multidisciplinary approach in teaching medical ethics. Conclusion: this comparative study showed that the medical ethics curriculum should adopt a student centered strategy and multidisciplinary approach to strengthen medical student’s ethical reasoning and decision making. Keywords: MEDICAL ETHICS, COMPARATIVE STUDY, CURRICULUM