Dolores Dooley Clarke describes how the course in medical ethics at University College, Cork is structured, how it has changed and how it is likely to change as time goes on. Originally, the students seemed to view it as an intrusion 'to be tolerated' in their programme of 'strictly medical' studies. However, having moved on from that and away from the lecturer always being a Roman Catholic priest as well as a member of the Philosophy Department, the students now appear (...) to view it as producing a stimulus for a new interest in the area of ethics for physicians. This seems to have come about through the more extensive participation of students in researching and presenting issues of medical ethics. (shrink)