Assessment of medical ethics of fourth-year medical students

From 2005 to 2008, the authors assessed the medical ethics of 779 medical students in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University by using the Chula Method. This was conducted through a written examination asking the students to express their opinions about ethical issues. Their answers were rated as either Satisfactory (S) or Unsatisfactory (U). It was found that 750 students (96.3%) earned S while 29 students (3.7%) earned U. The results from this study can not be compared with the results from studies published in medical journals. Thus, knowledge about medical ethics is not complete even though it is intensively taught in medical schools and has been practiced for a long time. The authors would like to propose a new assessment of the medical ethics so that it can be systematically applied.