Using faculty consensus to develop and implement a medical ethics course

This report describes the development and implementation of a new required course in medical ethics for second-year medical students at the Cornell University Medical College, 1988-89 and 1989-90. The course was specifically designed to teach students who had not yet started their clinical clerkships to think critically and systematically about ethical issues faced by practicing physicians. The goals, structure, and content of the course were developed using an innovative technique, a planning model involving faculty consensus. The faculty members found the planning sessions intellectually challenging and enjoyable, and reported that the sessions added greatly to their teaching of the course. The students' evaluations over the first two years of the course (with 188 of the 201 students--94%--responding) documented the students' satisfaction with the content and the structure of the course, and their belief that the course had achieved its goals. The authors conclude that the faculty's participation in the planning process was crucial to the success of the course.