Altruism ; COVID-19/epidemiology* ; Delivery of Health Care/ethics* ; Empathy ; Ethics, Medical ; Global Health ; Humans ; International Cooperation ; Physicians ; World Health Organization

Clinical practice of Medical Genetics involves application of various genetic techniques for the diagnosis of genetic disorders and subsequent genetic counseling and treatment. The principles of Medical Ethics must be fully taken into account when applying genetic knowledge for medical practice. Medical Ethics education is therefore essential for the standardized training of resident doctors in medical genetics department. With a basic system of Medical Genetics Physician Training established, our hospital has made a preliminary exploration for the development of Medical Ethics teaching in resident training through various teaching practices including seminar, network teaching, case study, scene teaching and outpatient teaching, with an aim to strengthen Medical Ethnics knowledge, professionalism and communication skills, and implement Medical Ethics principles throughout clinical practice.
Curriculum ; Educational Status ; Ethics, Medical ; Genetics, Medical ; Humans

Background: Social media is a common channel for communication, information and education. However, it is also a potential forum where lapses of professionalism may occur. In this study we aimed to elicit medical students’ perspective on social media practices and their perceived implications of social media posts. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study of Semesters 1 and 9 medical students from the International Medical University (IMU). A score was created consisting of the sum of the Likert scale in the 10-item social media practices questionnaire. Categorical variables were compared using chi-square test, while continuous variables that were not normally distributed were compared using Mann-Whitney U test. Statistical significance was set at p<0.05. Results: Out of 118 respondents (61% females), 54.2% of them recalled previous instructions regarding the use of social media and 55.1% of them were familiar with the IMU Social Media Guidelines. In general, respondents showed high level of awareness of inappropriate social medial practices, with statistically better awareness among Semester 1 students. Students who reported familiarity with IMU Social Media Guidelines were more aware of inappropriate social media practices. Most respondents were aware of the potential adverse impact of social media posts. Conclusion IMU students who participated in our survey generally had a good grasp of what constitutes inappropriate behaviour on social media and its potential future impact. Lower level of awareness of inappropriate social media practices among the Semester 9 students points to the need for periodic reminders of IMU Social Media Guidelines.
Students, Medical ; Social Media ; Professionalism ; Ethics, Medical

In this paper, I reflect on caring and witnessing through engaged ethnography of an urban poor community during the onset of the COVID19 pandemic. The urban poor are individuals and families who live below the poverty line in metropolitan areas, many of whom have little or no political voice and are insufficiently protected by social networks and other institutions. In March 2020, the government placed Metro Manila under Enhanced Community Quarantine to control the spread of COVID19. This left many an urban poor community in Metro Manila to struggle even more against an already precarious existence. By standard, nurses render different levels of care for urban poor clients in almost all health care settings. In public health nursing, we come in close contact to the realities of our clients when we see them in health centers, in the community, or whenever we do our home visits. Now, caring for vulnerable and marginalized groups such as the urban poor has changed due to minimum public health standards of wearing masks, physical distancing, handwashing, and enforcement of lockdowns. As a nurse, an academic, and as a student of anthropology, I came up for self-review while doing an article for a popular social news network derived from a virtually engaged ethnography. While this novel method requires you to see the world through the eyes of the “other,” and generates bioethical dialogue and awareness of personal biases in addressing ethical considerations and challenges, it gives voice and fulfills our roles as client advocates. In May 2020, the article was published with the urban poor organization and its partners as my coauthors. I borrowed from anthropology to arrive at a greater understanding of the socio-cultural effects and political implications of COVID19 to one of the most vulnerable nursing clientele – the urban poor.
Public Health Nursing ; Ethics, Research ; COVID-19

The undergraduate dental degree in Malaysia is regulated by the Malaysian Dental Council (MDC) (Standard of Undergraduate Competencies), Code of Professional Conduct of the Malaysian Dental Council, the Malaysian Qualification Framework 2.0 and the Malaysian Quality Agency (MQA) quality assurance documents. These primary documents emphasize the importance of professional ethics and law in dentistry as will be further detailed and discussed later. This study reflects on the need to integrate ethics, professionalism and law with sufficient coverage in terms of content and emphasis in the dental undergraduate curriculum. Literature and benchmarking practices are reviewed for a deeper reflection of the current needs in a professional dental ethics and law education course. The present study is primarily focused on regulatory requirements, legal cases and comparative literature to serve as a reference on how professional ethics and law courses may be conducted. As an incidental measure, a reflection as to how the course of study of professional ethics is delivered in a local university is considered in a selected local university’s undergraduate dental curriculum. The findings indicate that ethics professionalism and dental law is not given sufficient emphasis as it is included as one of the minor components within another overcrowded subject and the coverage of what is taught is limited in context. This paper is an invitation to all dental schools to review and reflect whether, given the emphasis on professional ethics, legal and regulatory compliance in the regulatory documents, it is adequately reflected in their dental curriculum. In this regard, some benchmarking references are done to suggest what such a course should cover, for consideration of the dental schools.
Ethics, Dental

Neonatal hypoxic-ischemic (HI) brain injury is a major cause of neonatal mortality and long-term neurodevelopmental disabilities. Although promising neuroprotective interventions have been studied, the current management of HI brain injury has been limited to supportive measures and induced hypothermia. In addition to engrafting, migrating toward the damage sites and differentiating into multiple lineages, multipotent neural stem/progenitor cells (NSPCs) also provide trophic/immunomodulatory factors and integrate into the host neurons upon implantation into an HI-injured brain. However, NSPC-based therapies have shown poor cell survival and integration, poor differentiation or restricted differentiation into the glial lineages. Furthermore, to achieve full functional recovery following brain injury, the optimization of cell therapy is needed to recapitulate the precise migration of stem cells to the region of interest and the neural rewiring present in the brain microenvironment. Therefore, the efficacy of NSPCs in the treatment of CNS injury is currently insufficient. Human NSPCs (hNSPCs) were isolated from the forebrain of an aborted fetus at 13 weeks of gestation with full parental consent and the approval of the Institutional Review Board of the Yonsei University College of Medicine. Here, to enhance the regenerative ability of hNSPCs in HI brain injury, cells were either pretreated with pharmacological agents or engineered to serve as vehicles for gene delivery. Furthermore, when combined with a poly (glycolic acid)-based synthetic scaffold, hNSPCs provide a more versatile treatment for neonatal HI brain injury. Finally, hNSPCs transfected with zinc-doped ferrite magnetic nanoparticles for controlling both cell migration and differentiation offer a simple and smart tool for cell-based therapies.
Aborted Fetus ; Brain Injuries ; Brain ; Cell Movement ; Cell Survival ; Cell- and Tissue-Based Therapy ; Ethics Committees, Research ; Genetic Therapy ; Humans ; Hypothermia, Induced ; Hypoxia-Ischemia, Brain ; Infant ; Infant Mortality ; Nanoparticles ; Neural Stem Cells ; Neurons ; Parental Consent ; Pregnancy ; Prosencephalon ; Stem Cells ; Translational Medical Research

PURPOSE: This study was performed to identify the influence of nursing professionalism and campus environment on the perception of ethical sensitivity among nursing students. METHODS: A descriptive survey design was used for this study. The participants were 323 nursing students attending four universities in Busan and Kyungnam. Data collection was conducted from November 25 to December 25, 2017 using a self-report questionnaire. Data were analyzed using a t-test, ANOVA, Scheffe's test, Pearson's correlation coefficients, and stepwise multiple regression. RESULTS: The factors influencing ethical sensitivity of nursing students were identified as professional self-concept (β=.36), nursing role (β=.24), scholarship (β=.17), practicability (β=.17), and propriety (β=-.13). Five factors explained 40.5% of nursing students' ethical sensitivity. CONCLUSION: The results of this study can be used to develop further educational programs on nursing professionalism and campus environments for enhancement of nursing students' ethical sensitivity.
Busan ; Data Collection ; Ethics, Nursing ; Fellowships and Scholarships ; Gyeongsangnam-do ; Humans ; Nursing ; Professionalism ; Students, Nursing

Scholarly article writing and publishing in international peer-reviewed journals can become an overwhelming task for many medical, nursing, and healthcare professionals in a university setting, especially in countries whose native language is not English. To help improve their scientific writing skills and publishing capacity, a university-based editing system and writing programs can be developed as educational platforms. These are delivered by a team of specialist editors composed of tenured faculty members who have a strong medical background and extensive experience in teaching courses on medical research, editing, writing, and publishing. For the editing system, the specialist editors provide comprehensive editing, personalized consultation, full editorial support after peer review, guidance with online submissions/resubmissions, and detailed editorial review at different stages of the manuscript writing. In addition, the specialist editors can develop writing programs such as medical writing and editing internships, academic courses in medical writing or research study designs and reporting standards, special interactive lectures and sessions on predatory publishing, seminars on updated editorial guidance of global editorial associations, academic visits on medical writing and editing, medical writing mentoring program, networking programs in scholarly communication, and publication resources in medical writing and scholarly publishing. These editing system and writing programs can serve as integrated platforms for improving scientific writing skills and publishing capacity by providing continuing education in medical writing, editing, publishing, and publication ethics.
Delivery of Health Care ; Education, Continuing ; Ethics ; Humans ; Internship and Residency ; Lectures ; Medical Writing ; Mentors ; Nursing ; Peer Review ; Publications ; Specialization ; Writing*

PURPOSE: This study aimed to investigate students’ cheating behaviors, perceptions, and risk factors for cheating. METHODS: The author conducted a questionnaire survey of 375 undergraduate students at the Dankook University College of Dentistry in 2017. The questionnaires consisted of three parts: individual information, a moral sensitivity test, and cheating behaviors. Students rated whether they were involved in 28 cheating behaviors and their intolerant attitude for each behavior. Each student received a cheating grade of severity and diversity from 0 to 4 according to the degree of commitment in cheating behaviors. Chi-square and correlation tests were performed among cheating grades, individual factors, and moral sensitivity. RESULTS: Most students admitted having engaged in at least one cheating behavior (92.2%). School years, intolerant attitudes towards cheating, perceived prevalence, study time, and academic performance showed significant correlations with students’ cheating grades. CONCLUSION: These findings indicated that cheating behaviors were a very serious and prevalent problem at this dental college in South Korea. This is a critical issue that must be addressed. Dental school faculty members need to work together to develop policies, ethics curriculum and to improve students’ attitudes. It is also important to encourage students to learn and devote their time to study to reduce cheating behaviors.
Curriculum ; Dentistry ; Education, Dental ; Ethics ; Humans ; Korea ; Prevalence ; Risk Factors ; Schools, Dental

PURPOSE: This study investigated medical students' attitudes toward academic misconduct that occurs in the learning environment during the pre-clinical and clinical periods. METHODS: Third-year medical students from seven medical schools were invited to participate in this study. A total of 337 of the 557 (60.5%) students completed an inventory assessing their attitudes toward academic misconduct. The inventory covered seven factors: scientific misconduct (eight items), irresponsibility in class (six items), disrespectful behavior in patient care (five items), dishonesty in clerkship tasks (four items), free riding on group assignments (four items), irresponsibility during clerkship (two items), and cheating on examinations (one item). RESULTS: Medical students showed a strict attitude toward academic misconduct such as cheating on examinations and disrespectful behavior in patient care, but they showed a less rigorous attitude toward dishonesty in clerkship tasks and irresponsibility in class. There was no difference in students' attitudes toward unprofessional behaviors by gender. The graduate medical school students showed a stricter attitude toward some factors of academic misconduct than the medical college students. This difference was significant for irresponsibility in class, disrespectful behavior in patient care, and free riding on group assignments. CONCLUSION: This study indicates a critical vulnerability in medical students' professionalism toward academic integrity and responsibility. Further study evidence is needed to confirm whether this professionalism lapse is confined only to this population or is pervasive in other medical schools as well.
Ethics ; Humans ; Learning ; Patient Care ; Professional Misconduct ; Professionalism ; Schools, Medical ; Scientific Misconduct ; Students, Medical