Teaching of bioethics in dental graduate programs in Brazil

Carolina Patrícia Aires,Fernando Neves Hugo,Pedro Luiz Rosalen,Fernanda Klein Marcondes

doi:10.1590/s1806-83242006000400001

Abstract

In the field of human research, researchers are faced with unexpected moral dilemmas, as a result of the development of technologies applied to health. Due to the great importance of this issue, our objective was to evaluate bioethics instruction in the education of researchers in Brazilian graduate programs in dentistry. Eighty-seven graduate programs in dentistry, recognized by CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel) were evaluated in this study. Data were extracted independently by two researchers from the CAPES website, and from the websites of the graduate programs, directly or via links to the programs available at the CAPES website. Forty-eight out of 87 programs had an ethics/bioethics course as part of their curricula. Of the graduation programs graded 5, 6 or 7 by CAPES, 38% included bioethics courses, while 62% of the programs graded 3 or 4 by CAPES had bioethics courses as part of their curricula. These findings are an alert to those involved in dental research education, as they showed that, although resolution 196/96 by the National Council of Health regulating human research in Brazil was published ten years ago, bioethics instruction in Brazilian graduate programs in dentistry is still at an incipient stage. This situation indicates a need for ethics pedagogy in the education of young researchers.

Highlights

With the development of new technologies applied to health, researchers involved in human research are faced with unexpected moral dilemmas
When the data referring to the existence of an ethics or bioethics course were related to the existence of an ethics or bioethics content in the course lists, there was a significant association between these variables (Spearman Correlation = 0.65; p < 0.001)
The data from the present study showed that 45% of the Brazilian graduate programs in dentistry did not offer any kind of bioethics teaching

Summary

Introduction

With the development of new technologies applied to health, researchers involved in human research are faced with unexpected moral dilemmas. The lack of consolidated guidelines expresses the shortcomings in the education of researchers in the health field. The paradigm of traditional ethics is unable to offer solutions to the new situations presented by the continuous developments in science and the problems resulting from them. According to Potter[10] (1971), bioethics should be a discipline capable of tracking scientific development with ethical awareness, supposedly ex-. Teaching of Bioethics in Dental Graduate Programs in Brazil. Braz Oral Res 2006;20(4):[285-9]

Objectives

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Conclusion