J Aziz Fatm Med Den College                                                        JULY - DECEMBER 2020; VOL. 2, NO. 2                                                                                                   36 
  

 

Importance of Teaching Medical Ethics at Undergraduate Level in Medical Colleges 
Dr. Farah Amir Ali 

 
 

   Advancement of science and technology including 

storm of social media, has developed many challenges 

for healthcare providers more than ever. In every day 

practice medical professionals face many situations 

where decisions are not merely taken on clinical and 

technical grounds but also require sound knowledge of 

ethics. In order to justify individual actions in particular 

situation, the code of conduct is always there. The 

importance of understanding medical ethics is 

undeniable due to increasing litigations and 

complexities in medical practice. On the other hand, 

majority of population is depending on doctors who are 

not adequately trained for medical ethics and 

professionalism. Medical ethics has become core part 

of medical education in worldwide but in our scenario, 

it seems to be left alone on personal opinions and 

routine practices. Our current undergraduate medical 

curriculum is still deficient in providing proper frame 

work to cover medical ethics. Few reasons that we still 

lack well defined curriculum are shortage of time, lack 

of qualified experts and deficiency of realizing its 

importance in providing quality care to patients. Due to 

which it has been found that graduates face problem in 

dealing with situations of medico-legal and 

ethics.1Medical ethics has been defined as “the 

analytical activity in which the concepts, assumptions, 

beliefs, attitudes, emotions, reasons, and arguments 

underlying medico-moral decision making are 

examined critically.”2 It covers practicing as well as 

research ethics.  The six common values that apply to 
medical ethics are autonomy, beneficence, non-

maleficence (first do not harm), justice, dignity, 

truthful, and honesty3. These mentioned norms 
themselves are not sufficient to deal with a particular 

situation. Medical ethics is well defined curriculum 

which includes core topics ranges from informed 

consent to refusal of treatment, rights, confidentiality, 

good practices and vulnerabilities created by doctors 

and students etc. Although it is obligatory to health care 

provider that adequate information is given to patients 

for treatment and procedure. They are also aware of 

potential benefits and risks of the given treatment.4 

Currently the curriculum which is taught in our medical 

colleges is aligned according to the prescribed text  

 

 
Correspondence:  

Dr. Farah Amir Ali 

Email: farah.zulfiqar@yahoo.com         

books of west, which often does not meet the need of 

our community. As knowledge is expanding so rapidly, 

there is necessity that we in Pakistan revise our 

curriculum according to local context and omit 

unnecessary cramming components and replace it with 

more practical approaches which help in developing 

community doctor, who can rationally treat patient. 

Ethics and professionalism should be included as the 

core part of syllabus in spiral manner so that our 

medical graduates are skilled enough to manage risky 

situations and have good communication and inter 

personal skills. There are multiple justifications that we 

should consider teaching ethics at undergraduate level. 

It would be helpful in resolving disputes among 

doctors, patients and relatives. It would give insight to 

make decisions beyond personal values and emotions 

on ethical codes. On the other hand, it is equally 

important to maintain fair relationship with other 

clinicians. It provides means of creating virtuous and 

skillful doctors for evaluating and resolving ethical 

dilemmas. Teaching ethics may deal to reduce cynicism 

in medical students and also help to abate ethical 

erosion as they progress in their careers. In developed 

countries like Canada, USA, UK, this course is integral 

part of their curriculum and it is evident from several 

researches that teaching ethics at undergraduate, has 

positive impact. It increases the decision-making 

abilities and contribute in daily working of medical 

professionals. We cannot teach their ethics as our 

religious and cultural context is entirely different from 

western world. So, we need to develop medical ethics 

curriculum along with its compulsory examination to 

assess the ability of students to critically and logically 

make decisions on ethical issues.  It is the demand of 

time that we work altogether to train “community 

friendly ethical health care provider” to improve our 

healthcare system. 

 

Conflict of interest: None 

REFERENCES: 

1. Ahsin S, Shahid A, Gondal GhM. Teaching communication skills and 

medical ethics to undergraduate. J. Adv Med & Prof. 2013;1(3):72-76. 

2. Pasha HC, Ali M. Principles of Islamic Medical Ethics JBIMA. 2019;1 
(1). https://jbima. com/article / principles-of-islamic-medical-ethics. 

[cited on:August 23,2020]  
3. Beauchamp TL, Childress JF. Principles of biomedical ethics. 5th ed. 

Oxford University Press; 2001.454. ISBN 0-19-514332-9 

https://jme.bmj.com/content/28/5/332.2.[cited on: August223,2020] 

Editorial 

https://jbima.com/author/jbima_author/
https://jme.bmj.com/content/28/5/332.2.%5bcited


 

J Aziz Fatm Med Den College                                                        JULY - DECEMBER 2020; VOL. 2, NO. 2                                                                                                   37 
  

4. Health ethics in practice: key issues and challenges. Global 
health ethics key issues Global Network of WHO Collaborating 

Centers for Bioethics World Health Organization. 2015 

   Farah Amir Ali