When should students learn about ethics, professionalism and patient safety?

Background: Medical education curricula are required to teach ethics, professionalism and patient safety, but there is no clear evidence as to when these topics should be introduced. The Personal and Professional Development (PPD) theme incorporates these topics, and is integrated throughout our postgraduate medical programme, but we were particularly interested in knowing when and how to introduce them to year-1 students. We describe an intensive PPD programme in the context of broader issues associated with the appropriate timing of PPD curricula in a medical programme.

Republished paper: The WHO patient safety curriculum guide for medical schools.

Background: The urgent need for patient safety education for healthcare students has been recognised by many accreditation bodies, but to date there has been sporadic attention to undergraduate/graduate medical programmes. Medical students themselves have identified quality and safety of care as an important area of instruction; as future doctors and healthcare leaders, they must be prepared to practise safe healthcare. Medical education has yet to fully embrace patient safety concepts and principles into existing medical curricula.

The WHO patient safety curriculum guide for medical schools.

Background: The urgent need for patient safety education for healthcare students has been recognised by many accreditation bodies, but to date there has been sporadic attention to undergraduate/graduate medical programmes. Medical students themselves have identified quality and safety of care as an important area of instruction; as future doctors and healthcare leaders, they must be prepared to practise safe healthcare. Medical education has yet to fully embrace patient safety concepts and principles into existing medical curricula.

Enhancing the relationship and improving communication between adolescents and their health care providers: a school based intervention by medical students.

Objective: To develop, implement and evaluate a workshop to help adolescents develop independent and active relationships with their physicians.

Methods: A needs-assessment survey informed the development of a workshop delivered by medical student volunteers and incorporated into the career and personal planning curriculum of high schools in Vancouver, Canada.

Results: Over a 6-year period, 64 workshops were delivered by 181 medical students to 1651 high school students in six schools.