An assessment of faculty and dental student decision-making in ethics

This study reports and compares dental student and dental faculty scores to national norms for the Defining Issues Test 2, a measure of ethical decision-making competency. The findings showed that dental students and faculty tend to make decisions that promote self-interest, paralleling the ethical orientation of business professionals. Differences associated with gender, language, and norms from previous studies were observed. The findings underscore the importance of raising dental faculty and student awareness of their own ethical decision-making approaches. More importantly, the findings highlight the need to ensure that dental faculty have both the knowledge and skills to train dental students about the central role that ethical decision-making must play in patient care.