Teaching Medical Students About Conflicts of Interest

Abstract

A long-standing ethos surrounds the practice of medicine. In that ethos physicians cannot fulfill their healing purpose without showing a high level of professionalism toward patients. It is part of medicine’s social contract, a contract through which scrutiny by public interest typically tells physicians how well they are doing and how well they have been taught. Medical educators within the span of modern memory still believe the careful selection of students maximizes the likelihood new learners, in addition to acquiring medical knowledge and skills, can understand and adopt traditional values of professionalism. Matriculating students harboring some sense of social responsibility are thought to be more inclined to embrace these values, particularly if they are shared by likeminded peers. Such principles include service, competency, altruism, integrity, promoting the public good, transparency, and accountability.