A Survey of Medical Ethics Curricula at 11 US Medical Schools

Medical ethics education is crucial for equipping future physicians with the knowledge and skills needed to navigate complex moral decision-making in medical practice. However, the approaches various medical schools take to achieve this have been largely understudied. This investigation aimed to describe the current state of medical ethics education across a range of schools to inform future curriculum development.

A case study design was used to synthesize data from interviews with ethics curriculum educators at 11 US medical schools. Both descriptive and qualitative content analyses were performed on these interviews.

The study found significant variability in nearly every examined area, including contact hours (ranging from 6 to 137.5 h), course content, methods of instruction, and assessment. Most schools tended to integrate ethics into larger courses rather than teach it independently. However, significant vertical integration (i.e., ethics content distributed in all curricular phases) was observed at only a small minority of schools. Qualitative themes revealed several barriers to vertical integration, such as the dilution of ethics content within larger topics, concentration of ethics content in the preclinical phase, and overall competition for curricular time. An additional theme concerned the flexibility within ethics curricula.

Most of the reviewed schools’ ethics curricula lacked comprehensive vertical integration—something that can be achieved with careful planning. We present an integrative model based on discussions with the minority of schools that have successfully integrated ethics seamlessly into their curricula.