Ethics education should make room for emotions: a qualitative study of medical ethics teaching in Indonesia and the Netherlands Abstract Studies have shown that students may feel emotional discomfort when they are asked to identify ethical problems which they have encountered during their training. Teachers in medical ethics, however, more often focus on the cognitive and rational ethical aspects and not much on students’ emotions. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore students’ feelings and emotions when dealing with ethical problems during their clinical training and explore differences between two countries: Indonesia and the Netherlands. We observed a total of eighteen ethics group discussions and interviewed fifteen medical students at two medical schools. Data were interpreted and analyzed using content analysis. We categorized students’ negative emotions based on their objects of reflection and came up with three categories: emotions concerning their own performance, emotions when witnessing unethical behaviors, and emotions related to barriers and limitations of their working environment. Our study suggests that addressing emotional responses in a culturally sensitive way is important to develop students’ self-awareness. Teachers should be able to guide students to reflect on and be critical of their own thoughts and emotions, to understand their own moral values, especially when confronted with other individuals.

Ethics education in prison: a pilot study on an ethics programme for offenders Abstract Education is a fundamental process of human life with ethics having an important place in all areas of our life. It is thus important to incorporate ethics into education as a subject (Gülcon Procedia-Social and Behavioural Science 174: 2622–2625, 2014). Reports have indicated in how “teaching philosophy can enhance people’s capacity for critical (rather than emotional) thinking, encourage critical engagements with ideas of self, and improve interpersonal skills, with these being important transferable skills that could help prisoners to prosper once released” (Reported by The University of Edinburg n.d.). This is in line with the South African prison system’s mandate, which is to maintain and promote a just, peaceful and safe society by correcting offending behaviour in a safe, secure and human environment, thus facilitating optimal rehabilitation and reduced repeat offending (Department of Correctional Services 2017). Therefore, for the system to fulfil some of its mandate; ethics education in prison for the purpose of rehabilitating offender’s moral thinking and reasoning in order to correct their behaviour before being released is vital. Ethics training was done at the Johannesburg Correctional Service, with a maximum of 40 voluntary participants (who self-selected themselves to take the training). Training was dived into three categories: 1. Tutorials. 2. Practical application of moral values of Ubuntu. 3. Discussion and debating another set of moral values as well as writing of assignments. Participants reported to have gained and learned to respect themselves as well as others (in their immediate community- prison and society at large), identify their faults (crimes they committed) and gained self-confidence. Application of this method in ethics education proved to be well received by the participants, as well as how ethics training in prison might be used as an effective tool for moral development and reasoning, thereby rehabilitation.

Professional ethics in academia: defining the categories of behavior spectrum in matters of unethical conduct

Implementation of ethics education

IAEE International Association for Education in Ethics 8th international conference on ethics education, Interdisciplinarity and Pluriperspectivism

Leaders in ethics education

Implementation of a multi-disciplinary ethics unit Abstract The multi-disciplinary unit Social Responsibility in Action (SRA) was developed for students with an interest in ethics who were completing undergraduate degrees in Arts, Commerce, Design or Science at an Australian research-intensive university. The academic objectives of this unit were to increase student awareness, knowledge, understanding and critical thinking skills related to various ethical issues. Lecturers from five disciplines (philosophy; animal biology; anatomy, physiology and human biology; law; pharmacology) collaborated in the design and delivery of SRA, which comprised lectures, tutorials and a research-based project. Anonymous surveys were administered at the start and end of the semester to obtain feedback on student expectations and learning experience, respectively. Data across three student cohorts showed that at the start of semester, 80% of student comments indicated a desire to expand their interest of ethical matters, 59% a desire to gain understanding and knowledge and 59% to gain critical thinking or communication skills. SRA was extremely well received by students, with 98% of respondents indicating that this multi-disciplinary ethics unit had met their expectations. Students also found that the variety of teaching styles, unit content and multi-disciplinary approach stimulated learning.

A critical analysis of markers’ feedback on ethics essays and a proposal for change Abstract This article discusses the feedback on students’ ethics essays provided by eight markers in the Faculty of Medical Sciences at Newcastle University. It highlights significant shortcomings, including failures to identify instances where students had failed to select and to conclude on ethical issues (clearly), logical errors, misunderstandings of ethical arguments made in the literature, instances of simple deference, and a lack of critical engagement with relevant literature. Markers also made a large number of linguistic errors and, on many occasions, failed to explain clearly what they meant. Some indication is given of what the cost of this might be to health care students as well as to those who are affected by the quality of their ethical decisions. The article concludes by providing some guidance on how this cost might be reduced at Newcastle University as well as in many other institutions where similar problems are likely to exist.

Looking back– looking forward: ethics finds its place in the medical curriculum in India Abstract The formal oversight of medical education in India occurred with the promulgation of the Indian Medical Degrees Act in 1916. Despite an awareness of the need to train ethical doctors and the formal discussion of this as early as 1955, the formal teaching of medical ethics has been restricted to a few colleges as it has not been part of a mandated requirement. In August, 2019, all medical colleges in India will adopt a new Medical Council of India mandated curriculum. An embedded AETCOM (Attitude, Ethics and Communication) module across all years of training is a part of this curriculum and is the first attempt to introduce medical ethics uniformly in close to 500 medical colleges in the country. This paper traces the historical attempts to include medical ethics in medical education in India, and describes the current plan to implement ethics teaching in the undergraduate medical curriculum in India.

Predictive models of biology students’ convictions towards bioethical issues Abstract This study aimed at determining B.S. Biology students’ comprehension of the Bioethics principles and conviction schemas towards bioethical issues; as well as at identifying predictors for comprehension of bioethical principles and convictions and creating model constructs of predictors which are fit for the data. One-hundred sixteen Filipino Biology majors were pre and post-tested for comprehension of bioethics principles and convictions towards bioethical issues. Predictors for comprehension and convictions among personal and family background factors, global and primary personality factors, and mental ability were identified through step-wise multiple regression. Constructed path models were tested for goodness of fit using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Results showed that case study discussion and the bioethics course had positive effects on comprehension of the bioethics principles and on convictions towards bioethical issues. Predictors for comprehension of Bioethics principles before intervention were verbal ability, warmth, and exposure to media. Sex and openness to change were predictors for pre-convictions. Post-conviction predictors were anxiety, self-control, extraversion, liveliness, and perfectionism. Four out of five model constructs were accepted based on model fit criteria. In conclusion, personal factors, i.e., sex and personality factors are contributors in bioethical convictions; not cognitive factors like mental ability or comprehension of Bioethics principles; implying that bioethical convictions are already pre-conceived and that empathy-based experiences may strengthen convictions towards bioethical issues.