抄録
Backgrounds & Aims : Most medical schools have acknowledged the importance of medical ethics education. Yet the methodology for such an education has to be established.
Methods : We used an 8-item questionnaire to survey the needs and expectations of medical students with regard to their medical ethics class.
Results : One hundred and nineteen first-year students voluntarily responded to this survey. Students from two different school years gave considerably similar responses. The opinions of many students were as follows : the medical ethics class should be offered, necessary and sufficient hours for such a class would be two or four semester hours, the course should not follow the National Examination for Physicians format, sessions consisting of both lectures and discussions are desirable, and the course should start in the first grade. They felt that a clinical doctor, a philosopher interested in medicine, or a medical professional who has studied philosophy and ethics would be most appropriate as the teacher in charge. The teachers' roles anticipated were to introduce actual ethical problems in a clinical setting, to provide coordinate axes for the opinions and values of each students, and to instigate arguments.
Conclusions : The items that provide the key to a plethora of medical ethics education concerns are 1) the cooperation between clinical doctors and philosophers and ethicists, 2) the introspective discussion oriented class format, and 3) an acceptance and ensuring of divergent perspectives.
