Ethics across the occupational therapy curriculum

The authors describe the development of specific teaching modules, methods, and techniques with which to raise student consciousness and generate awareness of ethical issues in occupational therapy practice as well as to develop the ethical decision-making process through the use of three ethical decision-making and thinking models. This focus on ethics has been integrated into the entire 2-year occupational therapy curriculum at a liberal arts college as part of the college's larger institutional mission and objectives. The results obtained from informal faculty and student contacts and students' feedback after completion of clinical fieldwork demonstrate increased student sensitivity and ability to identify and discern ethical issues as well as increased awareness of the many professional complexities involved in the determination of decisive proactive responses.