The limits of deontology in dental ethics education

Abstract

Most current dental ethics curricula use a deontological approach to biomedical and dental ethics that emphasizes adherence to duties and principles as properties that determine whether an act is ethical. But the actual ethical orientation of students is typically unknown. The purpose of the current study was to determine the ethical orientation of dental students in resolving clinical ethical dilemmas. First-year students from one school were invited to participate in an electronic survey that included eight vignettes featuring ethical conflicts common to the health care setting. The Multidimensional Ethics Scale was used to evaluate the students' ethical judgments of these conflicts. Students rated each vignette along 13 ethically relevant items using a 7-point scale. Nine of the thirteen items were analyzed because they represent the dominant ethical theories, including deontology. One hundred sixteen dental students successfully completed the survey. Of the analyzed items, those associated with deontology had comparatively weak associations with whether students judged the action to be ethical and whether students judged themselves likely to perform the action. Whether an action was judged to be caring had the strongest association with whether the action was judged to be ethical and whether students judged themselves likely to perform the action. These results suggest that adherence to duties or principles has weaker association with students' ethical judgments and behavior compared to caring, which was found to be more influential in their ethical judgments and behavior. Current dental school curricula with a primary focus on deontology may not adequately prepare students to maintain ethical attitudes and behavior in practice.

Dental education and undue exposure of patients’ image in social media: A literature review

“…The issues mentioned above reflect the current training of dentistry academics, that presents characteristics of knowledge fragmentation, encouraging an early specialisation, basically technicist 22,23 . Consequently, this type of training is not able to embrace the reality of individuals, as it does not prioritise ethical discussions in a social context, nor stimulate the thought of responsibility, preventing possible reflections on patient‐student relationships 12,22‐24 …”

“…An outdated example is the teaching of ethics in undergraduate courses, which has been focused minimally on the presentation of the deontological ethics code 12,24‐26 . Students are mainly instructed to the legal and juridical precepts, and there are no approaches that refer to the problematisation of ethics in the face of contemporary social demands.…”

“…Students are mainly instructed to the legal and juridical precepts, and there are no approaches that refer to the problematisation of ethics in the face of contemporary social demands. Therefore, the formation of a more critical and humanised professional is unsatisfactory, as little evidence supports the efficacy of that approach in producing ethical behaviour 12 …”

“…In this context, there is a lack of discussion on the consequences of undue exposure of patients’ image in SM by students and dental professionals, mainly from an ethical point of view 12 . When this critical issue is addressed, a better understanding of how faculty members and educators can incite reflections of students and practitioners about the proper use of SM can be achieved.…”

Formação x educação, Deontologia x ética: repensando conceitos, reposicionando docentes

“…30,31 Não se trata de uma pergunta simples. São muitos os que buscam respondê-la, alguns deles inclusive coletivamente, como por exemplo, por meio da International Association for Education in Ethics (IAEE) 32 ou da Red Latinoamericana y del Caribe de Educación en Bioética (REDLACEB) 33 .…”