Medical Ethics in United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, the General Medical Council (GMC) requires that medical graduates behave according to ethical and legal principles and must know about and comply with the General Medical Council’s ethical guidance and standards. It suggests that these standards can only be achieved when the teaching and learning of medical ethics, law and professionalism are fundamental to, and thoroughly integrated both vertically and horizontally throughout, the curricula of all medical schools as a shared obligation of all teachers. The General Medical Council also requires that each medical school provides adequate teaching time and resources to achieve the above. The General Medical Council reiterates that the adequate provision and coordination of teaching and learning of ethics and law requires at least one full-time senior academic in ethics and law with relevant professional and academic expertise.

Resources

See Also

Online Resources

• Ethics resources (Connotea)
• Law resources (Connotea)
• World Medical Association – Medical ethics manual (2009)
• Medical ethics and law for doctors of tomorrow: the 1998 consensus statement updated. Stirrat GM et al. Journal of Medical Ethics 2010; 36:55-60
• Medical law and ethics teaching resources (The Ethox Centre – University of Oxford)
• Medical ethics @ the BMA
• Ethical guidance @ the GMC
• The Journal of Medical Ethics
• death-related resources at the New Scientist magazine online

Further Reading

• Medical ethics: a very short introduction. Hope T.
• Prepared for practice? Law teaching and assessment in UK medical schools. J Med Ethics. 2010
• Prepared for practice? Law teaching and assessment in UK medical schools. Preston-Shoot M, McKimm J. Med Ethics. 2010 Nov; 36(11):694-9. Epub 2010 Jul 26.
• Ethics and law teaching and learning in undergraduate medicine. [J Med Ethics. 2010]
• It’s ethical, but is it legal? Teaching ethics and law in the medical school curriculum. [Anat Rec. 2001]
• Ethics and law teaching and learning in undergraduate medicine. [J Med Ethics. 2010]

Online Resources in the Lawi Project

• Medical Ethics in the Encyclopedia of Britain
• Medical Ethics in the Osborn’s Concise Law Dictionary
• Medical Ethics in the Halsbury’s Laws of England
• Medical Ethics in the Stroud’s Judicial Dictionary of Words and Phrases
• Medical Ethics in the Jowitt’s Dictionary of English Law
• Medical Ethics in the New Oxford Companion to Law
• Medical Ethics in the Words and Phrases Legally Defined
• Medical Ethics in the Oxford Dictionary of Law