MEDICAL ETHICS COURSE IMPROVES MEDICAL PROFESSIONALISM: MEDICAL STUDENTS´ OPINIONS

Training physicians who are expert in many medical aspects is the most improtant mission of medical universities. One of these aspects, is professional behavior achievement. One of the important goals i n training of ethics, is recognition of conflicts in different parts of ethics and having logical viewpo int for resolving and analyzing these conflicts. This d escriptive and analytical study was done to evaluat e the efficacy of medical ethics education in medical studentsprofessional attitudes improvement. One hundred and two medical students were selected rand omly in different steps of education and were questioned and their opinions correlation with stag e of education and gender were evaluated. There was a significant difference between female viewpoi nt (in roles of ethic course which is presented in preclinical step in professional attitude improveme nt) (P = 0.009) and also a significant difference w as seen in the viewpoint score between student stage w ith intern stage (P = 0.031). Medical students in educational student stage believe ethic course impr ove medical professionalism. Since there is no special course to train medical students in profess ionalism, some interventions are required in this f ield to improve this aspect of physicians' professional life.