Incorporating an Analytical Approach to Ethical Reasoning into an Ethics Case Conference for Residents

Med Sci Educ. 2024 Jul 4;34(6):1283-1288. doi: 10.1007/s40670-024-02109-6. eCollection 2024 Dec.

Abstract

Educating residents to apply ethical principles in clinical practice is critical in achieving standards in professionalism. We implemented biweekly ethics morning report case conferences incorporating a validated analytical tool in medical ethics, the Four-Box Method, from July 2022 to June 2023 in our internal medicine residency program. In 24 ethics morning reports, over 73% of participants reported that the intervention helped them achieve each of three learning objectives in ethics education. Ninety-two percent of cases addressed > 1 ethical issue. Our intervention may be easily integrated into the morning report conference structure as an educational tool in medical ethics across internal medicine residency programs.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40670-024-02109-6.

Keywords: Medical education; Medical ethics.