Introduction of Active Educational Methods in Medical Ethics Education and Evaluations of Their Effect on Medical Students / 医学教育

ABSTRACT

We introduced active educational methods in medical ethics education and evaluated their effect on medical students. Three methods were used 1) small-group discussion to clarify the clinical ethical issues, 2) self-study to analyze examples of doctors' explanations to patients, and 3) self-study with videotapes to recognize informed consent. We asked students to write a report on each subject of the three studies. Before grading their reports, we determined a standard answer for each subject and marked their reports according to an absolute standard. We found the mean value and standard error of the students' scores in study 1 were significantly higher than those in study 2 or 3. These results suggest that small-group discussion is an effective educational method and useful in the analysis of clinical ethical issues.