Ethics skills laboratory experience for surgery interns.
INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE
Ethics curricula are nearly universal in residency training programs, but the content and delivery methods are not well described, and there is still a relative paucity of literature evaluating the effect of ethics curricula. Several commentators have called for more ethics curriculum development at the postgraduate level, and specifically in surgery training. We detail our development and implementation of a clinical ethics curriculum for surgery interns.


METHODS
We developed curricula and simulated patient cases for 2 core clinical ethics skills--breaking bad news and obtaining informed consent. Educational sessions for each topic included (1) framework development (discussion of interns' current experience, development of a consensus framework for ethical practice, and comparison with established frameworks) and (2) practice with simulated patient followed by peer and faculty feedback. At the beginning and end of each session, we administered a test of confidence and knowledge about the topics to assess the effect of the sessions.


RESULTS
A total of 98 surgical interns participated in the ethics skills laboratory from Spring 2008 to Spring 2011. We identified significant improvement in confidence regarding the appropriate content of informed consent (<0.001) and capacity to break bad news (<0.001). We also identified significant improvement in overall knowledge regarding informed consent (<0.01), capacity assessment (<0.05), and breaking bad news (0.001). Regarding specific components of informed consent, capacity assessment, and breaking bad news, significant improvement was shown in some areas, while we failed to improve knowledge in others.


CONCLUSIONS
Through faculty-facilitated small group discussion, surgery interns were able to develop frameworks for ethical practice that paralleled established frameworks. Skills-based training in clinical ethics resulted in an increase in knowledge scores and self-reported confidence. Evaluation of 4 annual cohorts of surgery interns demonstrates significant successes and some areas for improvement in this educational intervention.
['Moon|Margaret R|MR|', 'Hughes|Mark T|MT|', 'Chen|Jiin-Yu|JY|', 'Khaira|Kiran|K|', 'Lipsett|Pamela|P|', 'Carrese|Joseph A|JA|']
D002983:Clinical Competence D003479:Curriculum D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate D004521:Educational Measurement D004992:Ethics, Medical D013502:General Surgery D006801:Humans D007258:Informed Consent D007396:Internship and Residency D014342:Truth Disclosure
clinical ethics informed consent breaking bad news Interpersonal and Communication Skills Patient Care Professionalism graduate medical education