Audiology: student perception of preceptor and fellow student ethics.

Background: Health care professionals are expected to uphold high ethical standards. Recently, ethical practices in health care have received increased scrutiny and study in an effort to ensure that clinicians meet such high ethical standards in serving their patients and clients. The American Academy of Audiology's Code of Ethics establishes professional standards that allow for the proper discharge of an audiologist's responsibilities while maintaining the integrity of the profession. Under this code, student academy members are included and required to abide by the code, the same as practicing members. The code is composed of a preamble and eight principles.

Method: The present study provides an overview of students' perceptions across a broad spectrum of ethical topics governing our profession. Specifically, this study examined audiology students' perceptions of preceptor ethics relating to these eight principles using an online survey.

Results: Responses were collected from 143 of 600 audiology students contacted and indicated that they believed that their preceptors consistently followed each of the eight principles. Results also indicated that students believe fellow students also behave ethically and that it is the primary responsibility of academic faculty, not preceptors, to teach ethics.

Conclusion: It can be concluded that preceptors are perceived by their students to be acting with high ethical standards. However, more research and discussion may be needed to determine who should teach these ethics to students.