Then, lastly, there is our duty of care in supporting students who voice concern about standards in ethics and law encountered in clinical settings; or when they personally experience conflicts between the ethical and the legal; or in responding to issues of student fitness to practise arising from their interactions with patients; and, above all, in our own responsibilities towards every student so as to foster, as formatively as we can, the learning in ethics and law that will equip them, as effectively as we can, for their future careers as medical practitioners.


Summary


Making sense of ethics and law in the curriculum begins with clarifying the primary aim of the course in conjunction with the overall domain of learning to which it relates. This is reinforced by constructing a relevant frame around its key emphases. The course also has to be mediated within the wider curriculum, and benefits from a coherent and communicated course scheme that is directly meaningful within the educational setting of the medical school.


Law and ethics have a tremendous plasticity in medical education. To borrow the words of Onora O’Neill (2002), they offer “a meeting ground” for integration with the range of blocks, themes, and clinical specialties in the curriculum. Our task as medical teachers is to ensure our students can make sense of what proceeds from this so as to form, inform, and transform their learning.


And finally, whatever the context of such a meeting ground within your medical school curriculum, this AMEE Guide is provided in the hope that, in addition to the signposts it offers on managing, clarifying, constructing, mediating, and assessing of the course, it may also inspire your own creativity in developing the options and possibilities for the ethico-legal education of your students.


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Guide 53: Ethics and Law in the Medical Curriculum


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