An assessment of ethical sensitivity: implications for interdisciplinary education

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between discipline-specific knowledge and ethical sensitivity among health professions students, as related to different levels of education. Specifically, the study addressed the question, do health professions students, grouped according to their disciplines and levels of education, differ in their ethical sensitivity to selected discipline-specific ethical dilemmas? Subjects included 48 senior students from the disciplines of dental assisting, dental hygiene, and dentistry, and the disciplines of surgical technology, respiratory therapy, and medicine. Dental and nondental disciplinary groups represented the certificate, associate degree, and graduate levels of education. Differences between and among groups' ethical sensitivity scores, as derived from the Dental Ethical Sensitivity Test (DEST), were statistically analyzed. Results of the study indicated that, given dental-related case studies, students with discipline-specific knowledge in dentistry did not differ in ethical sensitivity from students who did not possess discipline-specific knowledge in that field. However, the results also demonstrated that students enrolled at different levels of education did differ significantly in ethical sensitivity, regardless of discipline-specific knowledge in dentistry. These findings have implications for teaching applied professional ethics in health professions education, from an interdisciplinary perspective.