Teaching medical ethics: implementation and evaluation of a new course during residency training in bahrain.

AIM This paper describes the development, implementation and evaluation of a new biomedical ethics course. The major educational goal was to enable the participants to critically analyse and resolve ethical dilemmas based on sound ethical and moral reasoning. BACKGROUND The course was developed and implemented in the Family Practice Residency Program (FPRP) in the Kingdom of Bahrain. METHODOLOGY Thirty-six family physician trainees participated in this course in May 2002 and January 2003. The curriculum was divided into five sessions, and each session had specific objectives, contents and teaching methods. The course was evaluated using pre- and post-tests, direct observation of participants and overall course assessment. RESULTS Evaluations demonstrated that the participants scored higher in the post-test than in the pre-test. There was a significant statistical difference between the mean scores of both tests. After completing the course, participants produced more justifiable decisions than those generated at the beginning and felt more confident discussing and reasoning their decisions based on sound ethical and moral concepts. CONCLUSION Our experience had demonstrated that the trainees benefited from a structured curriculum in biomedical ethics. We believe that the development and implementation of our course may serve as a case study for training and teaching postgraduates in the area of medical ethics.