Medical-ethics teaching in Canadian physical medicine and rehabilitation residency training programs.

Background: Medical-ethics education is a required component of all Royal College residency training programs in Canada. There have been no studies to determine how and to what extent this teaching is done in physical medicine and rehabilitation training programs.

Objective: To assess the state of medical-ethics teaching in Canadian physical medicine and rehabilitation residency training programs.

Methods: A six-question survey was faxed to the program directors of the 10 physiatry residency training programs in Canada. We asked whether medical-ethics teaching is being done, who is doing the teaching, which pedagogic methods is used, how many hours are dedicated to the topic, which topics are taught, and what evaluation method is used.

Results: The response rate was 90 per cent. The study confirmed that medical-ethics teaching is done in all Canadian physiatry training programs. However, the person doing the teaching, the number of hours allocated to ethics education, the pedagogic method used, and the topics being taught vary from program to program.

Conclusions: Although medical-ethics teaching is done in all programs, there is a need for more standardization in the curriculum and in evaluation. The curriculum should focus on ethical issues that are most likely to be encountered in daily physiatric practice. Small-group, case-based teaching should be used for maximum effectiveness. Whenever possible, teaching should be done by a physiatrist.