The effect of a class in medical ethics on first-year medical students

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Abstract
PURPOSE . To assess the effect of a class in medical ethics on first-year medical students . METHOD . A test instrument was developed to measure the attitudes of medical students toward certain ethical questions and to assess their factual knowledge regarding particular legal and ethical issues . The instrument was administered in 1992 – 93 to 110 first-year students at the University of Virginia School of Medicine before and after the students took a required course in medical ethics . The instrument employed clinical vignettes as well as multiple-choice , true-false , and Likert-scale questions . Its reliability and validity were assessed . RESULTS . The required course in medical ethics had little influence on the students . There was only one significant change ( p = . 05 ) in the pattern of responses to any of the clinical vignettes . In a few of the attitude-oriented queries , there were statistically significant changes ( p & lt ; . 05 ) after the course . Although there were statistically significant changes for only four of the factual-knowledge questions , for all such questions more students identified the correct answers after the class ( before the course the range of correct answers was 43 % to 99 % compared with 64 % to 100 % after the course ). CONCLUSION . The class in medical ethics seemed to have little effect on the first-year students , probably because students arrive at medical school with well-established ethical perspectives .

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