Teaching and evaluation methods of medical ethics in the Saudi public medical colleges: cross-sectional questionnaire study

Abstract

BackgroundSaudi Arabia is considered one of the most influential Muslim countries being as the host of the two most holy places for Muslims, namely Makkah and Madina. This was reflected in the emphasis on teaching medical ethics in a lecture-based format as a part of the subject of Islamic culture taught to medical students. Over the last few years, both teaching and evaluation of medical ethics have been changing as more Saudi academics received specialized training and qualifications in bioethics from western universities.MethodsThis study aims at studying the current teaching methods and evaluation tools used by the Saudi public medical schools. It is done using a self-administered online questionnaire.ResultsOut of the 14 medical schools that responded, the majority of the responding schools (6; 42.8%), had no ethics departments; but all schools had a curriculum dedicated to medical ethics. These curricula were mostly developed by the faculty staff (12; 85.7%). The most popular teaching method was lecturing (13; 92.8%). The most popular form of student assessment was a paper-based final examination (6; 42.8%) at the end of the course that was allocated 40% or more of the total grade of the ethics course. Six schools (42.8%) allocated 15-30% of the total grade to research.ConclusionAlthough there is a growing interest and commitment in teaching ethics to medical students in Saudi schools; there is lack of standardization in teaching and evaluation methods. There is a need for a national body to provide guidance for the medical schools to harmonize the teaching methods, particularly introducing more interactive and students-engaging methods on the account of passive lecturing.

Systematic Development and Refinement of a Contextually Relevant Strategy for Undergraduate Medical Ethics Education: a qualitative study

“…AlKabba et al (5) present similar views in the context of medical ethics education in Saudi Arabia, where a single religious theology substantially inspires the legal and moral frameworks. They argue that "importation" of a secular western curriculum of medical ethics is "problematic" in Saudi Arabia, as it is not in line with religious teachings, and does not address legal and moral issues from a local contextual perspective (5). This can compound the complexities for both learners and teachers and pose challenges to planning and delivering medical ethics courses (6)(7)(8).…”

“…Didactic lectures are the main form of teaching, and assessment, if conducted, is mostly through MCQs testing recall of knowledge. Hence, a shortage of trained medical ethics teachers and nonavailability of contextually relevant text for students to use as learning resources are the key factors hindering the progress of formal ethics education (5,12). An educational approach that can guide ethics teachers and provide learning support for the students is a high priority need in the region.…”

Teaching Islamic Medical Ethics

“…Ethics is an emerging discipline in many medical schools in the Islamic world, being taught in some schools by nonspecialists with limited experience in teaching ethics and not housed in a proper ethics departments. In Saudi Arabia, for example, a large proportion of the teaching staff, 28 (37.3%), have not specified whether they obtained any academic qualifications in ethics Although there is a growing interest and commitment in teaching ethics to medical students in medical schools; there is lack of standardization in teaching and evaluation methods (Alkabba 2013).…”

Psychological and Pedagogical Aspects of Teaching Basic Module «care for Surgical Patients» to Students of the First Course of the Medical University

“…Возможно проведение дополнительной оценки самоощущения людей, находящихся в хирургическом отделении. Это и персональное общение с соблюдением личных границ пациента, и скрининг по типу того, который используется в американской системе здравоохранения [3][4][5].…”