Special ArticlesPracticing What We Preach? An Analysis of the Curriculum of Values in Medical Education☆
Section snippets
Site selection
For reasons of access and convenience, this study was limited to a single institution’s teaching of values, and more specifically, the teaching of values in clinical medical education. Due to potential differences in values between specialties, the site of study was restricted to the values recommended and taught in internal medicine, during the clinical years of medical school and three years of residency training. The site was further limited to the inpatient general medicine services, since
The recommended curriculum: global
Each document was read and analyzed for references to the values expected of physicians. A tabulation of the global recommended curriculum can be found in Table 1. The first three columns represent three commonly used templates for the oath given to medical students upon graduation (23). The following example, from the Oath of Hippocrates, is interpreted as promoting confidentiality:
What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of
Discussion
This textual analysis provides new insights into the teaching of values in medical education. Among the values most frequently recommended or taught, accountability and compassion are consistently present across the curriculum. Other values are recommended but not taught (honesty, public health, self-policing), taught without recommendation (industry), or recommended and taught as the reverse (interprofessional disrespect and the burden, rather than the duty, of service). For curriculum
Acknowledgements
The author thanks the members of the Department of Internal Medicine, and the housestaff at the University of Michigan for their willingness and enthusiasm to participate in this research. Thanks also to Larry Cuban, Elliot Eisner, Kelley Skeff, Lee Shulman, Deb Odom Stern, and Jim Woolliscroft for their guidance and critique throughout this research effort.
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Supported in part by the Lyle C. Roll Fund for the Study of Humane Medicine.