Challenges of the Medical Ethics PhD curriculum in Iran: A qualitative study.

Background: Bioethics is the foundation of medical practices, and can be applied in the different levels of medicine. In Iran, Medical Ethics started to be taught in the form of PhD course in Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) in 2007. Although many aspects of this plan are successfully implemented, some deficits also are frequently pointed out by many professors and students. The purpose of this study was to recognize the deficits and weaknesses of the current curriculum. Methods: This study was a qualitative descriptive type which was conducted based on semi-structured deep interview with open questions. The sample population of this research was composed of faculty members in Medical Ethics department of TUMS, students and graduates of PhD in Medical Ethics and also, the experts who worked on codification of the initial curriculum. Results: Overall, eleven individuals were interviewed. In general, "Practical application", "Feeling the Need", "Professional Doctorate", "Human Sciences", "Paramedical", "Possible", "Impossible", "Defining the Discipline Nature", "Student Attraction", "Professor", "Training", "Evaluation Procedure", "Student Admission", "Educational Content", "Teaching Method", :Student Evaluation", and "Course Management" were the main themes. Conclusion: With regard to the deficiencies in Medical Ethics training and also, the problems identified through interviews, it seems that a great deal of problems are possible to solve if Medical Ethics is considered an interdisciplinary field instead a monodisciplinary one. One of the main purposes in interdisciplinary fields is investigating, analyzing and introducing measures for issues and problems that cannot be known and solved by a single discipline.

Ethics Education in Medical Sciences; A National Descriptive Survey.

Background: Historically, teaching medical ethics was always an important educational objective; however, the educational strategies to fulfill this goal varied in different times and areas. In the past two decades, teaching ethics has become an important part of the core curriculum of medical sciences in IRAN; however, ethics is relatively a newcomer to the undergraduate curriculum of medical sciences. This study aimed to evaluate the current status of teaching ethics in medical sciences in Iran. Methods: This descriptive survey was quantitatively conducted in two phases; evaluation of the curricula and syllabus of all undergraduate programs and surveying medical ethics teaching in all medical universities and/or schools using a questionnaire. The course title, content, hours (units), the recommended references, the teaching and students' assessment methods, and the information of ethics teachers were reviewed and analyzed. Results: The study showed some features about the current status of ethics teaching in medical sciences, including 1) no incorporation of ethics in 10 BS and MSc curricula; 2) different course titles, course contents and course units in similar programs; 3) non-adherence to the curriculum in terms of the core content, the references, and teaching and assessment methods; 4) non-adherence to the ethics core content especially in medical, dentistry, and pharmacy schools; 5) lack of qualified ethics teachers; and 6) no horizontal or vertical integration in ethics teaching. Conclusion: Taken together, to overcome shortcomings in teaching ethics, the authors suggest a four-phase approach for strengthening and reforming ethics education in medical sciences including determining the core content for ethics teaching by experts consensus, revising curricula in all undergraduate programs of medical sciences, training ethics teachers, and amending infrastructures for teaching ethics.

Code of ethics for the national pharmaceutical system: Codifying and compilation.

Pharmacists as one of health-care providers face ethical issues in terms of pharmaceutical care, relationship with patients and cooperation with the health-care team. Other than pharmacy, there are pharmaceutical companies in various fields of manufacturing, importing or distributing that have their own ethical issues. Therefore, pharmacy practice is vulnerable to ethical challenges and needs special code of conducts. On feeling the need, based on a shared project between experts of the ethics from relevant research centers, all the needs were fully recognized and then specified code of conduct for each was written. The code of conduct was subject to comments of all experts involved in the pharmaceutical sector and thus criticized in several meetings. The prepared code of conduct is comprised of professional code of ethics for pharmacists, ethics guideline for pharmaceutical manufacturers, ethics guideline for pharmaceutical importers, ethics guideline for pharmaceutical distributors, and ethics guideline for policy makers. The document was compiled based on the principles of bioethics and professionalism. The compiling the code of ethics for the national pharmaceutical system is the first step in implementing ethics in pharmacy practice and further attempts into teaching the professionalism and the ethical code as the necessary and complementary effort are highly recommended.