Leading Students to Care: The Use of Clinical Simulations in Ethics

Abstract

ABSTRACTAlthough there is considerable normative discussion about the importance of care and caring in the pharmacy literature, little empirical data exist about how best to teach students to become caring professionals. Third-year pharmacy students (N = 50) in a required ethics course participated in four clinical simulations involving ethical issues. Although the primary purpose of the project was to explore the impact of clinical simulations on ethical decision-making, a secondary question surfaced: Do clinical simulations teach students about what it means to care for a patient? Since care is a complex phenomenon, it follows that learning how to care requires multiple teaching strategies and various types of assessment. Evidence of student learning such as: transcriptions of clinical simulations, reflective writing on the simulation experience and learning about caring from interactions with standardized patients are included. Finally, organizing questions for further research in teaching and learning...