4
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Bioethics Education in the Medical Programme among Malaysian Medical Schools: Where Are We Now?

      research-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Introduction:

          A global trend in medical education is the inclusion of bioethics teaching in medical programme. The objective of this article is to describe the current state of bioethics education in the medical programme among Malaysian medical schools.

          Method:

          A national survey was conducted among Malaysian medical schools between January and March 2019. One representative from each medical school was invited to respond to the survey. Respondents were faculty members involved in teaching and assessment of bioethics in their medical schools, or/and in developing and coordinating bioethics curriculum. Descriptive statistics were reported.

          Findings:

          Out of 30 medical schools, 11 completed and returned the survey (overall response rate = 36.7%). Of these 11 schools, 6/10 (60%) were from public institutions while 5/20 (25%) were from private institutions. All except 1 school implemented a formal bioethics curriculum. A wide range of bioethics topics are currently taught in the medical programme. The majority involved in teaching bioethics were health care professionals (mainly clinicians), followed by lawyers. Lecture and attendance, respectively, are the most common teaching and assessment method. Major barriers to the implementation of bioethics education included limited qualified teaching staff (6/11 = 54.5%), no established curriculum to follow (5/11 = 45.5%), limited financial resources to hire qualified staff (4/11 = 36.4%), and no consensus among faculty members (4/11 = 36.4%).

          Conclusion:

          Bioethics education in Malaysia is relatively new and mostly limited by a shortage of scholars in bioethics. National support and institutional collaboration in providing bioethics training is the key to enhance the quality of bioethics education.

          Related collections

          Most cited references29

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: not found
          • Article: not found

          In the 21st Century, what is an acceptable response rate?

            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Humanities in undergraduate medical education: a literature review.

            Humanities form an integral part of undergraduate medical curricula at numerous medical schools all over the world, and medical journals publish a considerable quantity of articles in this field. The aim of this study was to determine the extent to which the literature on humanities in undergraduate medical education seeks to provide evidence of a long-term impact of this integration of humanities in undergraduate medical education. Medline was searched for publications concerning the humanities in undergraduate medical education appearing from January 2000 to December 2008. All articles were manually sorted by the authors. Two hundred forty-five articles were included in the study. Following a qualitative analysis, the references included were categorized as "pleading the case," "course descriptions and evaluations," "seeking evidence of long-term impact," or "holding the horses." Two hundred twenty-four articles out of 245 either praised the (potential) effects of humanities on medical education or described existing or planned courses without offering substantial evidence of any long-term impact of these curricular activities on medical proficiency. Only 9 articles provided evidence of attempts to document long-term impacts using diverse test tools, and 10 articles presented relatively reserved attitudes toward humanities in undergraduate medical education. Evidence on the positive long-term impacts of integrating humanities into undergraduate medical education is sparse. This may pose a threat to the continued development of humanities-related activities in undergraduate medical education in the context of current demands for evidence to demonstrate educational effectiveness.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              Medical ethics education: where are we? Where should we be going? A review.

              The authors' primary goal was to provide a comprehensive and current review of the literature surrounding ethics education for medical students. Following this review, the authors summarize the deficits in the current literature and provide recommendations for future inquiries on medical ethics education. In 2004, the authors searched MEDLINE and PubMed using the following search terms: ethics, ethics education, medical ethics education, curriculum, undergraduate medical education, virtue, role model, philosophy of medicine, and outcomes research. No limit was placed on dates for this literature search. Articles whose primary focus was professionalism were excluded because the professionalism literature tends to focus on competencies and postgraduate education, whereas the primary focus of this study was on undergraduate education. Literature on physicians as role models to medical students as a form of teaching medical ethical ethics was excluded as well because the current discussion examines the formal undergraduate medical ethics curricula. Also excluded were reports from foreign countries (unless there were no equivalent studies in the United States). The authors found almost no literature exploring students' backgrounds (cultural, religious, socioeconomic, etc.) and the teaching of medical ethics in medical schools. Otherwise, the authors reviewed everything they could find, regardless of imperfections in individual reports such as small sample size or poor research methodology. The review, which encompassed articles from 1978 to 2004, revealed that deep shortcomings exist in the literature on medical ethics education. Deficits exist in all areas of the literature: (1) theoretical work done on the overall goals of medical ethics education; (2) empirical studies that attempt to examine outcomes for students; (3) studies examining teaching methods in medical ethics education, and (4) studies evaluating the effectiveness of various teaching methods. There are substantial opportunities for contribution to the literature on medical ethics education in all of the areas where deficits exist. The literature suggests that two points of view exist regarding the purpose of teaching medical ethics: (1) that it is a means of creating virtuous physicians; and (2) that it is a means of providing physicians with a skill set for analyzing and resolving ethical dilemmas. This dichotomy made it difficult to arrive at a consensus regarding the goals of medical ethics education. The field would benefit from further theoretical work aimed at better delineating the core content, core processes, and core skills relevant to the ethical practice of medicine. The time has come to organize an effort to improve and validate medical ethics education. In the end, effective medical ethics education will further the goals of medicine in dramatic and tangible ways.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Journal
                J Med Educ Curric Dev
                J Med Educ Curric Dev
                MDE
                spmde
                Journal of Medical Education and Curricular Development
                SAGE Publications (Sage UK: London, England )
                2382-1205
                2 December 2019
                Jan-Dec 2019
                : 6
                : 2382120519883887
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Medical Education & Research Development Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
                [2 ]Office of Medical Education, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
                [3 ]CUHK Centre for Bioethics, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
                Author notes
                [*]Joong Hiong Sim, Medical Education & Research Development Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Email: simjhjp@ 123456um.edu.my
                Author information
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4962-0417
                Article
                10.1177_2382120519883887
                10.1177/2382120519883887
                6887801
                31832540
                1378d90a-e79e-42b8-9c35-8b6728674a0a
                © The Author(s) 2019

                This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License ( http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages ( https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

                History
                : 22 August 2019
                : 27 September 2019
                Categories
                Original Research
                Custom metadata
                January-December 2019
                ts1

                bioethics education,medical programme,medical schools,malaysia

                Comments

                Comment on this article