Abstract
In the preceding chapters I have discussed a range of theoretical perspectives on medical ethics education. However this has not been offered as a singular ‘grand ‘theory’ of medical ethics education but, rather, it amounts to a number of overlapping and interlinked theoretical lenses that can be used to illuminate the subject from a number of directions. I have given shape to the topic through two chapters focused on the history of medical ethics education in the UK. In these I focused on how the development of medical ethics education relates to changes that were contemporaneously occurring within medical education itself. This included the (global) development of the reflective paradigm as a signature pedagogy of medical and professional education (Shulman 2005) as well as the introduction ‘outsiders’ (or ‘insider-outsiders’) to UK medical education. Just as these have became embedded within medical culture so has the practice of medical ethics. This has modulated the critical function of medical ethics, a fact that is indicative of its success.
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- 1.
In discussing the development of beliefs Schwitzgebel refers to Vygotsky and, implicitly, his zone of proximal development as well as the idea of ‘scaffolding’ (2002, p. 265).
- 2.
These are: Harm/Care; Fairness/Reciprocity; Ingroup/Loyalty; Authority/Respect; Purity/Sanctity (Haidt and Graham Haidt 2007).
- 3.
Although I disagree with the vast majority of commentators on the issue of (bio)ethical expertise and whilst I will not argue the point here I do believe that, if we accept and expand the perspective offered here, a cultural and democratically acceptable account of bio- and medical ethical expertise can be given.
- 4.
This approach remained until the 1963 when the GMC published the first of its famous ‘Blue Books’ and, even then, can be considered in force until the 1976 revision.
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Emmerich, N. (2013). Conclusions. In: Medical Ethics Education: An Interdisciplinary and Social Theoretical Perspective. SpringerBriefs in Ethics. Springer, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00485-3_6
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