Alignment of Ethics Curricula in Medical Education: A Student Perspective

The experiences of ethical conflict among critical care professionals in China: A qualitative study

BACKGROUND

Ethical conflict is embedded in healthcare and is common in critical care setting. However, there is a paucity of research on the nature of ethical conflict in China. Ethical conflict has cultural and context sensitivity. Therefore, evidence is needed from different backgrounds to help discuss this issue across borders.

AIM

This study aimed to qualitatively identify the experience of ethical conflict in critical care professionals in China.

STUDY DESIGN

From December 2021 to February 2022, we performed semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with 21 critical care professionals from five intensive care units in a tertiary general hospital in China. A thematic analysis approach was used to analyse the data.

RESULTS

Five themes and 14 sub-themes emerged from the data. Critical care professionals probably felt unable to navigate uncertainty, torn by family issues, outraged by unprofessional behaviours of medical staff, being trapped in a socioeconomic dilemma when having experience of ethical conflict. In addition, they also perceived that they could turn struggle into growth.

CONCLUSIONS

The experience of ethical conflict in critical care professionals involved a mixture of feelings. This study builds a comprehensive understanding of how ethical conflict affected their perceptions of themselves and their profession and provides implications to develop effective coping strategies.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE

The identification of critical care professionals' experience of ethical conflict would help identify what might trigger the ethical issues and what would be the potential target to optimize in critical practice.

Comparison of faculty and student perceptions of sexual and gender minority content in a preclerkship medical curriculum

BACKGROUND

Sexual and gender minority (SGM) persons experience stark health disparities. Efforts to mitigate disparities through medical education have met some success. However, evaluations have largely focused on subjective perspectives rather than objective measures. This study aimed to quantify Boston University School of Medicine's sexual and gender minority (SGM) education through surveys of course directors (CDs) and medical students regarding where SGM topics were taught in the preclerkship medical curriculum. Responses were compared to identify concordance between faculty intention and student perceptions regarding SGM education.

METHODS

A cross-sectional survey was distributed to preclerkship CDs and current medical students in Spring 2019 and 2021, respectively, regarding where in the mandatory preclerkship curriculum CDs deliberately taught and where first- and second-year students recalled having learned 10 SGM topic domains.

RESULTS

64.3% of CDs (n = 18), 47.0% of the first-year class (n = 71), and 67.3% of the second-year class (n = 101) responded to the surveys. Results indicate that, as anticipated, deliberate SGM teaching correlates with greater student recall as students recalled topics that were reported by CDs as intentionally taught at a significantly higher rate compared to those not intentionally taught (32.0% vs. 15.3%; p < 0.01). Students most commonly recalled learning SGM-related language and terminology, which is likely partly but not entirely attributed to curricular modifications and faculty development made between distribution of the faculty and student surveys, indicating the importance of all faculty being trained in appropriate SGM terminology and concepts. Discordance between faculty intention and student recall of when topics were taught reveals opportunities to enhance the intentionality and impact of SGM teaching.

CONCLUSIONS

Students perceive and recall SGM content that is not listed as learning objectives, and all faculty who utilize this material in their teachings should receive foundational training and be thoughtful about how information is framed. Faculty who intentionally teach SGM topics should be explicit and direct about the conclusions they intend students to draw from their curricular content.

The reliability and validity of the training elements scale for clinicians in the new era--based on the perspective of Chinese doctors' job demands

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study was to develop a scale of clinician training elements in the new period and test its reliability and validity.

METHODS

Our approach was based on interdisciplinary theory, systematology, collaborative innovation theory, and whole person education theory combined with the existing post competency model of Chinese doctors and the responsibilities and requirements endowed clinicians in the new historical period. The scale elements were extracted by referring to the relevant literature, and the training elements scale for clinicians in the new period were preliminarily formed. From July to August 2022, 1,086 clinicians from tertiary medical institutions in eastern, central, and western China were sampled and investigated. The questionnaire was revised via the critical ratio method and homogeneity test method, and the reliability and validity of the scale were also tested.

RESULTS

The training elements scale for clinicians in the new period included the following eight dimensions: basic clinical knowledge, interdisciplinary knowledge, clinical skill operation, public health knowledge, technological innovation capability, lifelong learning needs, medical humanistic literacy, and international exchange vision, as well as 51 other items. The Cronbach's α coefficient of the scale was 0.981, the half-reliability was 0.903, and the average variance extraction of each dimension was greater than 0.5. An exploratory factor analysis extracted eight main factors, and the cumulative variance contribution rate was 78.524%. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the model fit was ideal and the factor structure was stable.

CONCLUSION

The clinician training factor scale in the new era can fully meet the current training needs of r clinicians, and has good reliability and validity. It can be widely used in medical colleges and universities as a reference to reform the content of medical training and education, and can also be used in the continuing education of clinicians after graduation to compensate for gaps in knowledge during clinical work.

Continuous multidimensional assessment system of medical residents in teaching hospitals

Background and aims

Evaluation of learners is considered as one of the most important principles in education, especially in the clinical fields. Continuous assessment can be used to provide appropriate feedback to students about their strengths and weaknesses. In this regard, this study is aimed to design a system of continuous assessment of medical residents (SCMARs).

Methods

This study was performed using a combination of qualitative methods, including focus group discussion, expert panel, and Delphi technique. The study population consisted of all the stakeholders involved in the evaluation process of medical residents in Imam Reza Hospital Complex (IRHC) in Iran. This study was conducted in three phases, including identification of subthemes and indicators, production of a primary framework for the SCMAR, and agreement on the subthemes of the SCMAR. The nominal group technique was used for generating priority information. Data analysis was performed during the agreement review stage with the Excel software version 2016.

Results

The finalized SCMAR consisted of 10 main themes and 38 subthemes. The themes included objectives, evaluators, areas, and indicators of evaluation, evaluation periods, evaluation requirements, data collection, data sources, point assignment and data analysis methods, reporting, and feedback dissemination methods. Five areas of evaluation and 11 indicators of evaluation were proposed.

Conclusion

A comprehensive assessment system that continuously evaluates the performance of Medical Residents can be used as a stimulus to improve the quality of educational processes. The present study was aimed to address this need by designing a framework for such a system.

Black, White and Gray: Student Perspectives on Medical Humanities and Medical Education

ISSUE

In recent years, the value and relevance of humanities-based teaching in medical education have become more widely acknowledged. In many medical schools this has prompted additions to curricula that allow students to explore the gray-as opposed to the black and white-areas of medicine through arts, humanities, and social sciences. As curricula have expanded and diversified in this way, both medical educators and students have begun to ask: what is the best way to teach medical humanities?

EVIDENCE

In this article, five current medical students reflect on their experiences of medical humanities teaching through intercalated BSc programmes in the UK. What follows is a broad exploration of how the incorporation of medical humanities into students' time at university can improve clinical practice where the more rigid, objective-driven, model of medicine falls short.

IMPLICATIONS

This article reinforces the merit of moving beyond a purely biomedical model of medical education. Using the student voice as a vector for critique and discussion, we provide a starting point for uncovering the path toward true integration of humanities-style teaching into medical school curricula.

A systematic scoping review of undergraduate medical ethics education programs from 1990 to 2020

INTRODUCTION

Ensuring medical students are equipped with essential knowledge and portable skills to face complex ethical issues underlines the need for ethics education in medical school. Yet such training remains variable amidst evolving contextual, sociocultural, legal and financial considerations that inform training across different healthcare systems. This review aims to map how undergraduate medical schools teach and assess ethics.

METHODS

Guided by the Systematic Evidence-Based Approach (SEBA), two concurrent systematic scoping reviews were carried out, one on ethics teaching and another on their assessment. Searches were conducted on PubMed, Embase, PsycINFO and ERIC between 1 January 1990 and 31 December 2020. Data was independently analysed using thematic and content analysis.

RESULTS

Upon scrutinising the two sets of full-text articles, we identified 141 articles on ethics teaching and 102 articles on their assessments. 83 overlapped resulting in 160 distinct articles. Similar themes and categories were identified, these include teaching modalities, curriculum content, enablers and barriers to teaching, assessment methods, and their pros and cons.

CONCLUSION

This review reveals the importance of adopting an interactive, multimodal and interdisciplinary team-teaching approach to ethics education, involving community resource partners and faculty trained in ethics, law, communication, professionalism, and other intertwining healthcare professions. Conscientious effort should also be put into vertically and horizontally integrating ethics into formal medical curricula to ensure contextualisation and application of ethics knowledge, skills and attitudes, as well as protected time and adequate resources. A stage-based multimodal assessment approach should be used to appropriately evaluate knowledge acquisition, application and reflection across various practice settings. To scaffold personalised development plans and remediation efforts, multisource evaluations may be stored in a centralised portfolio. Whilst standardisation of curricula content ensures cross-speciality ethical proficiency, deliberative curriculum inquiry performed by faculty members using a Delphi approach may help to facilitate the narrowing of relevant topics.