A revised core curriculum for medical ethics and law in UK medical schools has been published. The General Medical Council requires medical graduates to understand law and ethics and behave in accordance with ethical and legal principles. A parallel policy agenda emphasises accountability, the development of professionalism and patient safety. Given the renewed focus on teaching and learning law alongside medical ethics and the development of professional identity, this survey aimed to identify how medical schools are responding to the preparation (...) of medical students for practice in the future. Questions were asked about the location, content and methods of teaching and assessment of law in undergraduate medical education. Examples of course documentation were requested to illustrate the approaches being taken. A 76% response rate was achieved. Most responding schools integrate law teaching with medical ethics, emphasising both the acquisition of knowledge and its application in a clinical context. Teaching, learning and assessment of law in clinical attachments is much less formalised than that in non-clinical education. Coverage of recommended topic areas varies, raising questions about the degree to which students can embed their knowledge and skills in actual practice. More positively, teaching does not rely on single individuals and clear descriptions were offered for problem-based and small group case-based learning. Further research is required to explore whether there are optimum ways of ensuring that legal knowledge, and skills in its use, form part of the development of professionalism among doctors in training. (shrink)

Medical councils increasingly require graduates to understand law and to practise medicine mindful of the legal rules. In the UK a revised curriculum for medical law and ethics has been published. However, coverage of law in medical education remains variable and doubts exist about how far students acquire legal knowledge and skills in its implementation. This survey of students in two UK medical schools measured their law learning and their confidence in using this knowledge. Concept maps and a self-audit questionnaire (...) were used to capture students' understanding and perceptions of this knowledge domain and self-assessments of their legal knowledge and skills. A large sample was achieved across first, second and final year students. Students agree that a sound understanding of law is essential to being a good doctor. Their perceptions of law are generally positive but the interface between the legal rules and codes of medical ethics creates difficulty. In some areas students offer relatively confident self-assessments of their legal knowledge and skills for practising law. However, levels of confidence in other areas of their law learning raise doubts about the degree to which they can advocate for and protect their patients. Conclusions are drawn about the effectiveness of students' law learning and recommendations made for further research. (shrink)

This paper draws on the experience of one research project in action to evaluate the usefulness of research ethics frameworks when the environment surrounding project negotiation, data collection and dissemination is seriously disturbed by critical incidents. The paper questions the lack of emphasis in research ethics codes on the competence and capacity of agencies when commissioning and sponsoring research. Using events that surrounded one project, the paper researches the research. It explores what impacted on the creation of the context for (...) ethical and effective research and how the researchers responded to the ethical challenges that emerged. Different theoretical understandings and ethical models are drawn upon to explore how a research team translated ethical research in theory into ethical research in practice within an organization in turmoil. (shrink)

In medical education, where law and ethics are often taught simultaneously, a hidden or silent curriculum emerges strongly from research-based and descriptive reviews of practice experienced by students and qualified practitioners. In social work education, where law and ethics are more commonly taught separately, specific reference to such a curriculum does not emerge from the literature. However, evidence from reviews of social work practice points to instances of ethical and legal erosion in the context of a profession which asserts its (...) location as a moral activity and its commitment to human rights and social justice. The purpose of this article is not to systematically compare what students may be learning in and about medicine and social work. Rather, prompted by concerns expressed in medical education research, it reviews the social work evidence and why it achieves a lower profile than parallel experiences in medicine. It explores the problems encountered in practice by students and qualified social workers when drawing on their legal and ethical knowledge. It reviews the impacts of legal and values education on social work programmes. It concludes by questioning whether the initiatives to improve social work, in England specifically, by the Social Work Task Force and Social Work Reform Board are appropriately configured to address the tensions that divide recommended from actual practice. (shrink)