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The purpose of this article is to report first-year dental students’ perceptions of their primary learning outcomes from a course in ethics and professionalism. Students were asked to identify one topic or theme from the course that might influence their professional practice. Responses from 232 students were analyzed according to the explicit topics taught in the course. The most commonly identified topics were confidentiality (21 percent), informed consent (21 percent), and obtaining assent from children and adolescents (19 percent). An ad hoc analysis of students’ narratives provides preliminary evidence that students perceive an increased awareness of their role and obligations as a professional immediately after a course in ethics and professionalism. The long-term influence of coursework in ethics and professionalism remains unknown.

Ethics education in dentistry is a requirement for accreditation. Despite universal adoption of ethics courses, there is ongoing discussion about the appropriate content of these courses and about methods to engage students. Faculty who teach ethics must select a limited set of topics from the broad fields of professional ethics, bioethics, and the humanities. The purpose of this article is to describe the ethical issues reported by fourth-year dental students during community-based extramural clinical experiences. Senior dental students (n=123) wrote essays describing an ethical issue they encountered during one of two extramural rotations. Ethical issues were categorized and coded by consensus between two faculty authors. Students most often reported perceived dilemmas related to patients' limited resources (25 percent), conflict between professionals (19 percent), clinic policy or procedures (15 percent), and decision making by patients' surrogates (13 percent). One student (

Background Patients with head and neck cancer may face decisions between surgery or radiation (with or without chemotherapy) which involve significant trade-offs in functional outcomes. This preliminary investigation is designed to examine patients' priorities among the effects of treatments for head and neck cancer. Methods A new instrument designed to allow patients to rank personal priorities among 12 treatment effects was developed and tested. A cross section of patients (19) from pretreatment and posttreatment time periods and 23 controls participated. Results Preliminary findings indicate high individual variability, with some differences between groups according to treatment time. Differences between patients and controls are evident. We report test-retest reliability and the limitations of this new tool. Conclusions The data suggest that measures of health state values should be conducted with patients rather than healthy volunteers. Patients' priorities may be influenced by treatment and some values may be more susceptible to change with experience of treatment effects. This new tool may provide insight into how patients' prioritize the anticipated and experienced effects of treatment for head and neck cancers. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Head Neck 21: 538–546, 1999.

Dear Dr. Alvares: In “Why Our Ethics Curricula Don’t Work” in the April 2004 Journal of Dental Education (J Dent Educ 2004;68:412–25[OpenUrl][1]), Dr. Charles N. Bertolami raises thoughtful questions about the efficacy of current teaching methods in ethics curricula for dental students.