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Really Good Stuff 

Volume 13 (Suppl.)       Number 25     December 2020  
Copyright © 2020 Tehran University of Medical Sciences. 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 
4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).  
Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted, provided the original work is 
properly cited. 

Virtual learning for teaching medical ethics during COVID-19 pandemic 

*Corresponding Author 
  
Mina Mobasher 

Afzalipour Faculty of Medicine, Kerman 

University of Medical Sciences, 22nd 

Bahman Blvd., Kerman, Iran. 

Postal Code : 7616914115 

Tel : (+98) 34 33 25 76 60-4 

Email : m.mobasher@kmu.ac.ir 

 

Received: 2 Oct 2020 

Accepted: 20 Nov 2020 

Published: 19 Dec 2020 

 

Citation to this article:  

Mobasher M. Virtual learning for 

teaching medical ethics during COVID-

19 pandemic. J Med Ethics Hist Med. 

2020; 13(Suppl.): 25. 

Mina Mobasher* 
 

Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine, School of Traditional Medicine, Kerman 
University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran. 

 

What problem was addressed?  

COVID-19 has been spread in many countries around the world, 

and its death toll is on the rise. During this COVID-19 

pandemic, medical students and their professors faced numerous 

challenges due to restrictions caused by canceling or disrupting 

clinical education programs (1,2), especially for medical ethics 

courses. Medical students learn medical humanities and 

professional values from their interactions with patients, as well 

as with their professors, colleagues, other healthcare providers, 

and the society (3). Although altruism, responsibility, honesty, 

respect, and justice are better understood by medical students at 

the time of a world-wide COVID-19 catastrophic pandemic (4). 

Teachers should employ suggested methods for training the 

values and concepts in the formal curriculum of medical ethics. 

Many studies support the use of student-centered approaches for 

teaching professionalism and concepts related to medical ethics 

and recommend that students should participate in the learning 

process to the furthest possible extent (5). Critical thinking plays 

an indispensable role in learning ethics, and is involved in 

interactive teaching methods (6). When online platforms were 

adapted for educational purposes, medical ethics teachers did 

not think that they could use interactive techniques (e.g., group 

discussions) to analyze clinical cases. Accordingly, they did not 

see the possibility of developing critical thinking competency 

without face-to-face interaction with students. 

 

 

 



Virtual learning for teaching medical ethics during COVID-19 pandemic  

 

 

 
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Volume 13 (Suppl.)     Number 25     December 2020 

 

As e-learning and online platforms are the 

staples of social-distancing and similar 

practices during the quarantine period, the 

primary concern is whether these platforms 

are suitable to be utilized for teaching the 

values and concepts of medical ethics and 

professionalism.  

What was tried?  

The author modified the medical ethics 

curriculum for medical and dental students 

and created an online course consisting of 16 

sessions to teach and then assess reasoning 

skills. In this modified curriculum, the 

fundamental concepts of medical ethics 

taught through a series of self-study 

materials to analyze cases that were freely 

available in the Learning Management 

System (LMS) platform of the university. In 

each session, a specific theme from the 

medical ethics curriculum was discussed. 

The students interacted in the virtual class to 

contribute to the case analysis and 

discussion of the introduced issue. Each 

session’s materials included assessment 

topics which allowed for formative 

feedback. Assessment topics were uploaded 

in the LMS platform based on the specific 

themes to be taught. These topics consisted 

of case analysis, storytelling, and review of 

excerpts from books and articles, and case 

presentation (Figure 1).  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Figure 1. Assessment Topics and analysis tools in LMS platform 

 

A qualitative study was conducted using 

inductive content analysis of the students’ 

responses in three main phases: open coding, 

creating categories, and abstraction (7). 

Figure 2 shows an example of the 

abstraction phase. This study showed that 

applied concepts in the analysis of individual 

cases by medical students and the review of 

books by dental students had meant the same 

for both students and teachers without face-

to-face communication.  



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Volume 13 (Suppl.)       Number 25     December 2020  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2. An example of the abstraction phase in this inductive content analysis 

 

This finding can demonstrate the efficacy of 

the tried approach for teaching ethical 

concepts and promoting critical thinking for 

real-life problem-solving. The students could 

access various materials, including guideline 

for professional practice prepared by the 

Medical Council in Iran (8), the World 

Medical Association (WMA) manual1 and the 

Dental Ethics Manual (9), using ethical 

analysis tools. The students’ engagement with 

the LMS platform of the university provided 

them with a good opportunity to access all 

valuable course resources. Additionally, the 

new generation of students is more interested 

                                              
1- Williams JR. Medical Ethics Manual.  
       https://www.wma.net 

in learning information from the virtual 

sources at their convenience, and hence they 

could more precisely analyze the ethical 

clinical cases. This virtual communication can 

help students participate in the learning 

process and enable them to develop cognitive 

and practical skills based on their capabilities 

as well as to obtain and incorporate 

assessment criteria. Especially, students’ 

performance in ethical case analyses can be 

used to determine their reflection on concepts 

and values in light of what is being offered in 

the online class.  Furthermore, use of on-line 

sources for the current generation of medical 

and dental students provides a good 

opportunity to build their reasoning skills and 



Virtual learning for teaching medical ethics during COVID-19 pandemic  

 

 

 
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Volume 13 (Suppl.)     Number 25     December 2020 

reinforce their lifelong learning of medical 

ethics. 

What lessons were learned?  

During COVID-19 pandemic, to meet the 

educational standards, a validated curriculum 

should be prepared for learning ethics. The 

areas that need to be improved in medical 

ethics training are critical thinking skills and 

related competencies. Virtual learning 

initiatives can provide high-quality, engaging, 

and active learning environments to improve 

decision-making skills and foster a healthy 

mindset. Students’ interaction with the training 

approach tested in this study can help build 

critical thinking and reflection skills as well as 

result in achieving medical ethics learning. 

This approach can be a student-centered or 

student participatory method for teaching 

medical ethics. 

 

Acknowledgments  

The author is grateful to the students of 

Kerman University of Medical Sciences for 

participating in this new online medical ethics 

training program. 

 

Conflict of Interests 

The author declares no conflict of interests. 

  



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Volume 13 (Suppl.)       Number 25     December 2020  

     References  

 
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20(7): 777-8. 
2. Tabatabai S. COVID-19 impact and virtual medical education. J Adv Med Educ Prof. 2020; 

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3. Miles SH, Lane LW, Bickel J, Walker RM, Cassel CK. Medical ethics education: coming of 

age. Acad Med. 1989; 64(12): 705-14. 
4. Rose S. Medical student education in the time of COVID-19. JAMA. 2020; 323(21): 2131-2. 
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Persian]  

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