Combining Ethics Inquiry and Clinical Experience in a Premedical Health Care Ethics Internship.

Problem: The professional formation of physicians begins in the premedical years, and educators are now recommending that medical ethics and humanities courses be considered essential components to becoming a physician rather than elective prerequisites for medical school admission. As a result, questions have arisen about how to teach students ethical reasoning skills before their professional training, as they have limited opportunities now to develop these skills and the related competencies in a real-world medical context.

Approach: The authors describe Santa Clara University's Health Care Ethics Internship (HCEI), an undergraduate college experience that emphasizes ethical inquiry and immerses students in health care settings to foster deep learning.