Ethics Unit
Health care decisions are based not only on clinical and technical grounds, but also on ethics. In this process, it has been noticed that ethical issues involved tend to be overlooked. World Health Organization (WHO) South-East Asia Regional Office (SEARO) has realised that the teaching of ethics in this part of the world is in a state of infancy and recommended that measures be taken to improve the situation. In this context, there has been growing tendency to incorporate ethics in medical, paramedical and nursing curriculum. Tribhuvan University, Institute of Medicine has already included medical ethics in undergraduate medical curriculum and some specialty masters program.
Ethics Unit facilitates the ‘structured’ professional ethics course in health profession education of various academic levels. The unit assists the academic institutions for curriculum development and implementation. Key activities of the units are:
- Incorporation of structured curriculum
- Training of trainers,
- Development of teaching-learning materials based on national situation,
- Co-ordination with relevant units and departments for implementation of curriculum.
Members of Ethics Unit
- Coordinator: Prof. Dr. Pramod K Shrestha from Department of Forensic Medicine
- Member: Dr. Madhav P Khanal from Department of Biochemistry
- Member: Dr. Uttam K Sharma from Department of Surgery, Urology Unit
Undergraduate Medical Curriculum
The undergraduate medical (MBBS) curriculum of Institute of Medicine includes the following topics on medical ethics, which has to be taught from first year to fifth year of the course.
- Principles of medical ethics
- Clinical ethics
- Patient autonomy
- Confidentiality
- Truth telling/disclosure
- Informed consent
- End of life decisions
- Patient rights
- Social justice
- Professional ethics: Codes of conduct
- Professionalism
- Medical negligence
- Professional misconduct
- Ethical dilemmas facing medical students
- Relationship with the pharmaceutical industry
- Issues related to health care provision by private sector
- Ethical issues related to reproductive health
- Ethical aspects of genetics
- Ethics of transplantation/organ donation
- Ethical aspects of treating the mentally ill
- Ethical issues in treating children
- Ethical aspects with HIV/AIDS
- Resource allocation in the health care system
- Ethics of public health and health promotion
- Ethical issues of dealing with other systems of medicine
- Principles of research ethics
- Publication ethic
