Beyond silos: An interprofessional, campus-wide ethics education program.

BACKGROUND: Ethics education is essential to the education of all healthcare professionals. The purpose of this study was to evaluate an interprofessional approach to ethics education to all students across an academic health science center. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES: The objectives were to (1) compare student perception of ethics education before and after the implementation of the campus-wide ethics program and (2) determine changes in student ethical decision-making skills following implementation of a campus-wide ethics program. RESEARCH DESIGN: This study was a quasi-experimental design with seniors graduating prior to the intervention serving as the control group. PARTICIPANTS AND RESEARCH CONTEXT: The setting was a comprehensive health science center in the southwestern United States. All students enrolled in the university participated in the intervention; however, 976 graduating students were used for evaluation of the intervention. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS: Study materials for each survey were submitted to the university's IRB, and the project was approved as exempt by the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects. Student participation in the surveys was voluntary. No names or other identifying information were collected, and responses to the survey questions were kept confidential. FINDINGS: Students' perception of the adequacy of time spent on the ethics content in course instruction and practical training decreased from the baseline to the fifth-year survey. Students' overall comfort level with their abilities to deal with ethical issues increased from the baseline to the fifth year. Student ethical decision-making skills were higher at the third-year evaluation for all indicators. For the fifth-year survey, responses were also higher scoring on all four indicators. DISCUSSION: After participation in an interprofessional campus-wide effort on health professions ethics, students demonstrated higher ethical decision-making scores according to the Health Professional Ethics Rubric. However, their scores still did not reach the proficiency level identified in the rubric. CONCLUSION: Examination of the effectiveness of each part of the intervention is needed.

The Brewsters: A new resource for interprofessional ethics education.

BACKGROUND: One of the barriers to interprofessional ethics education is a lack of resources that actively engage students in reflection on living an ethical professional life. This project implemented and evaluated an innovative resource for interprofessional ethics education. OBJECTIVES: The objective of this project was to create and evaluate an interprofessional learning activity on professionalism, clinical ethics, and research ethics. DESIGN: The Brewsters is a choose-your-own-adventure novel that addresses professionalism, clinical ethics, and research ethics. For the pilot of the book, a pre-test/post-test design was used. Once implemented across campus, a post-test was used to evaluate student learning in addition to a student satisfaction survey. PARTICIPANTS AND RESEARCH CONTEXT: A total of 755 students in six academic schools in a health science center completed the activity as part of orientation or in coursework. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS: The project was approved as exempt by the university's Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects. FINDINGS: The pilot study with 112 students demonstrated a significant increase in student knowledge. The 755 students who participated in the project had relatively high knowledge scores on the post-test and evaluated the activity positively. DISCUSSION: Students who read The Brewsters scored well on the post-test and had the highest scores on clinical ethics. Clinical ethics scores may indicate issues encountered in mass media. CONCLUSION: The Brewsters is an innovative resource for teaching interprofessional ethics and professionalism. Further work is needed to determine whether actual and long-term behavior is affected by the activity.