Ethical issues in anesthesia: the need for a more practical and contextual approach in teaching

ABSTRACT

Teaching ethics to medical students is one of the current topics of major interest. Issues of ethics pertaining to anesthesia are unique. This article reviews these issues with respect to the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative periods. The author shares the experience of incorporating ethical issues into every clinical scenario in the problem-based learning sessions of both undergraduate and postgraduate students. In addition to separate modules in didactic and clinical formats, incorporating the ethical aspects into every clinical problem has many advantages. This approach will stimulate students to ponder over the ethical dimension of every clinical scenario, and the reinforcement of this approach during teaching in the clinical setting may help in inculcating these qualities in the students. Additionally, this approach contextualizes these issues to the local and regional perspective, instead of lecturing on the ethical codes developed elsewhere.