Competency VII - Moral Reasoning and Ethical Judgment

Definitions / Levels of achievement / Assessment criteria

I. Definitions

The competent graduate:

• recognizes the ethical issues of medical practice and health policy;

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• identifies alternatives in difficult ethical choices;

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• systematically analyzes conflicting considerations supporting different alternatives; and formulates, defends, and implements a course of action acknowledging this ethical complexity.

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• fuses a willingness to recognize the nature of the value systems of patients and others with commitment to his/her own system and the ethical choices necessary to maintain his/her own ethical integrity.

II. Levels of Achievement

A. Level One

• Students use ethical concepts, reasoning when reviewing model ethical cases.

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• They recognize ethical issues in medical practice and identify most relevant ethical considerations.

B. Level Two

• Students identify ethical issues, dilemmas in their own clinical experience with patient care and health policies.

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• They carefully evaluate alternative actions, analyze and explain the relative import of competing ethical considerations and defend selected course of action as ethical.

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• Students recognize when further expertise or resources are needed to resolve ethical choices and can get this aid.

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• They respect patients' value systems and can integrate moral reasoning and judgment with communication, interpersonal, and clinical skills to provide patients with effective and ethical care.

C. Level Three

• Students lead in determining ethical issues in treatment of individual patients, relations with other health care professionals, and in health policies.

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• They identify and analyze ways that rules and guidelines of professional groups, the legal system, and various institutional frameworks and practices influence ethical choices.

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• Students recognize unethical behavior of other health care providers and effectively use available resources to resolve the issue.

III. Assessment Criteria

A. Understands basic ethical concepts and applies them in moral reasoning relevant to medicine/health care.

 

B. Recognizes ethical dimensions of medicine.

 

C. Identifies conflicting ethical concerns in a particular ethical choice.

 

D. Systematically analyzes and defends ethical choices in the treatment of an individual patient.

 

E. Determines, articulates, and analyzes the ethical issues in health policy.

 

F. Determines, articulates, and analyzes the ethical issues in relations with other health care professionals.

 

G. Identifies relevant case and statutory law bearing on ethical issues and choices; analyzes and defends positions about their roles in ethical choices.

 

H. Demonstrates and employs skills necessary to implement ethical choices in medical practice.

 

I. Effectively integrates the above ethical skills in the care of his/her own patients.

 

J. Recognizes and effectively handles unethical behavior of other members of the health care team.

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