We have used narrative approach to supplement the two usual methods of teaching biomedical ethics: the principlebased approach and the casuistic approach. Our experience suggested (1) although the learning of key principles is essential to medical ethics, the casuistic approach can be the more effective strategy than the principle-based approach for learning clinical moral reasoning and (2) that narrative approach can be the most effective learning strategy in humane medicine, especially in relativizing a student's moral views. By combining these three approaches, learning strategies in medical ethics can be refined.

We conducted a questionnaire survey on medical students' attitude on bioethics education. The survey was conducted at the beginning of bioethics courses for fifth-year students from 1997 through 1999. The results suggest that students who had relatively stronger interest in bioethics considered themselves to be “generalist-oriented doctors” rather than “specialist-oriented doctors” and were interested in nonmedical academic fields. Teaching of most bioethical issues was evaluated as not being sufficient for the students' level of interest. Many students thought that bioethics should be taught repeatedly throughout their medical education and that more time should be dedicated to case discussion.