Bioethics became an academic discipline in its own right in the 1970s, and its debut was soon followed by increasing concern over the best way to teach the subject at the graduate level. Many authors reported making the best of the available personnel and course time, whereas others were able to develop more extensive programs. The time devoted to the teaching of bioethics varies from a minimum of 5-10 classroom sessions to a maximum of more than 200 hours. Bioethical topics have been presented in the initial years of medical school and/or integrated with clinical teaching. Short courses have tended to gravitate towards the period when students begin their clinical training. There has also been a wide range of teaching methods, with most medical schools relying to some extent on lectures and adding short group discussions on issues and cases. Additional methods like seminars, role-playing, and video or literature analysis have occurred less frequently. Reports often stress that interactive teaching methods require additional faculty that are not always available. Since basic textbooks in bioethics are scarce, it seems reasonable to prepare and discuss hand-outs in order to systematically cover all essential topics. Evaluation tends to rely on short essays or the analysis of vignettes
Bioethics; Teaching; Didactic methods