A model for faculty development and continuing education in medical ethics: medicine and humanities consultations

Despite the significant increase in teaching medical ethics to medical students and residents, little has been done to train teaching faculty and community practicing physicians in medical-ethical decision making. The Medicine and Humanities Consultation Series described here has been a successful model for faculty development in helping practicing physicians with such decision making. The consultations among clinical physicians and humanities scholars were held about every 3 months at an off-campus site to remove the participants from professional intrusions. The 8-hour consultations, conducted informally, addressed social and ethical topics concerning medical practice. Several preselected short articles were distributed to the participants 2 weeks prior to the consultations. Each consultation was led by a visiting guest leader who was sometimes a physician but usually a humanities scholar. This model has been implemented successfully in both Virginia and Texas under very different circumstances. Physicians reported being more comfortable with their ethical decision making--not in terms of what to decide but in terms of how to decide. The consultations enriched the participants' funds of knowledge and their methods of thinking.