Aequilibrium prudentis: on the necessity for ethics and policy studies in the scientific and technological education of medical professionals

Abstract

BackgroundThe importance of strong science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education continues to grow as society, medicine, and the economy become increasingly focused and dependent upon bioscientific and technological innovation. New advances in frontier sciences (e.g., genetics, neuroscience, bio-engineering, nanoscience, cyberscience) generate ethical issues and questions regarding the use of novel technologies in medicine and public life.DiscussionIn light of current emphasis upon science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education (at the pre-collegiate, undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels), the pace and extent of advancements in science and biotechnology, the increasingly technological orientation and capabilities of medicine, and the ways that medicine – as profession and practice – can engage such scientific and technological power upon the multi-cultural world-stage to affect the human predicament, human condition, and perhaps nature of the human being, we argue that it is critical that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education go beyond technical understanding and directly address ethical, legal, social, and public policy implications of new innovations. Toward this end, we propose a paradigm of integrative science, technology, ethics, and policy studies that meets these needs through early and continued educational exposure that expands extant curricula of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics programs from the high school through collegiate, graduate, medical, and post-graduate medical education. We posit a synthetic approach that elucidates the historical, current, and potential interaction of scientific and biotechnological development in addition to the ethico-legal and social issues that are important to educate and sustain the next generation of medical and biomedical professionals who can appreciate, articulate, and address the realities of scientific and biotechnological progress given the shifting architectonics of the global social milieu.SummaryWe assert that current trends in science, technology, medicine, and global politics dictate that these skills will be necessary to responsibly guide ethically sound employment of science, technology, and engineering advancements in medicine so as to enable more competent and humanitarian practice within an increasingly pluralistic world culture.

A Preparatory Neuroethical Approach to Assessing Developments in Neurotechnology

“…Neuroethics provides a set of practices for realistically defining horizons of possibility and pursuing the deliberations necessary to move ahead with prudence [11,17,21,23]. But the field cannot continue to advance without representation in medical education and training at a variety of levels and through a diversity of resources, inclusive of medical curricula, resident training, grand rounds, and case presentations [24]. Such education will ultimately be vital to informing and developing neuroethically sound guidelines and policies to direct the provision and use of clinical resources, goods, and services and to providing public education about the trajectories and implications of employing neuroscientific techniques and neurotechnology in neurology, psychiatry, and neurosurgery.…”

Ethics competences in the undergraduate medical education curriculum: the Spanish experience

“…All disciplines should be taught in a bioethical context. In all areas, the ethics of scientific communication must play an important role in teaching (24). …”

Culture, Actors, and Resources Surrounding Undergraduate Bioethics Education in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…The literature warns of two pitfalls of importing curriculum from outside the continent. The first is the imposition of often Western ethical views that do not represent or apply to Africa (Anderson and Giordano, 2013;Matheson, 2009). A second issue is inaccurate representation of contexts that are very different from those in North America and Europe (Griggins et al, 2011).…”