Teaching Ethics in the Health Care Setting

Abstract

The last twenty years have brought important changes to health care and health care education. and students alike face an enormous number of new fields of study and new medical technologies. Health care professionals and institutions are also facing new challenges in the form of shrinking economic resources, and the AIDS epidemic. They must also respond to increased patient participation in health care decisions, and public concern about abortion and euthanasia. These challenges to the health care professional have compelled educators to accommodate ethics within their already overcrowded curriculum. Those same dilemmas have influenced health care institutions to become active in health care ethics education.