Teaching and learning medical ethics.

Three main questions are central to teaching and learning medical ethics. Can ethics be taught? If it can, what are some of its teachable components? And what teaching methods are appropriate? The author supports the concept of ethical competence as the basis of an ethical practice. Ethical competence is a set of insights, skills, understandings, ways of thinking which can be taught. The parallel is drawn between these kinds of competencies and the components of rigorous thinking characteristic of the training and experience of medical problem-solvers. Finally the author takes up four common criticisms of this approach.