How to include bioethics in medical careers with innovative curricula?

Abstract

In the so-called innovative curricula, the pedagogical path of medical education is organized according to the competencies that the graduate must achieve at the end of the medical degree. There are 6 competencies defined by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and agreed in different regions of America and Europe. Bioethics, as a body of knowledge and practices, is present in one of the competencies -professionalism- where it appears in an enunciative way, without a development that allows guiding pedagogical processes and objectifying related behaviors and skills.

There are 5 fundamental aspects of the bioethical disciplinary corpus that must be incorporated into the framework of the medical degree: i) professional ethics, ii) autonomy and informed decision making, iii) justice and rational use of resources, iv) clinical ethics and v) research ethics. Bioethics must be practically integrated into all professional competencies, with specific content, application and evaluation spaces being essential elements to be developed in a curriculum. The possible consequences of inadequate bioethical training in the medical education are related to the dehumanization and depersonalization of patients, the violation of the confidentiality or intimacy, the lack of patient participation in decision-making, among others.

In this article, we develop the bioethical dimension as part of the competencies in a comprehensive manner, in close relation to clinical practice, so that its development can be demonstrated and evaluated in context.