Abstract

Advances in clinical neuroscience have created an unprecedented need for medical residents in the clinical neurosciences to discuss and learn pragmatic approaches to ethics. The challenges of ethics in the clinical neurosciences involve a wide range of issues that span acute interventions in the neurosurgical theatre to long-term care for individuals living with mental illness in the community. Often, these challenges involve dii cult treatment and end-of-life decision-making, and have become even more signii cant in the face of rapid scientii c progress. Past research suggests that physician proi ciency in clinical ethics is limited largely to experiential learning with little formal training or exposure to scholarly material. Furthermore, knowledge of ethical issues relating specii cally to the brain sciences is unknown. This paper is an invited follow-up to the i rst presentation of a pilot educational program designed to bring neuroethics to the forefront of medical training and practice for medical residents in Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, presented at the Brain Matters Conference held in Halifax, Nova Scotia in September 2009. We describe core components of the program here, including journal clubs on tough neuro-clinical cases, seminars on cutting edge topics in neuroethics, and opportunities for residents to innovate in research. We compare and contrast the relative strengths and limitations of the strategies implemented, and present a vision for next steps based on what we have learned to date