Perspectives of professors of medicine about medical ethics

Abstract

This article aims to characterize the perspectives of professors from a medicine course about medical ethics. It is a descriptive cross-sectional study with a quantitative approach. Two questionnaires were applied to the 86 professors of the medicine course at PUC-Goiás: a socio-demographic questionnaire and another which assessed knowledge and interest in medical ethics. A descriptive analysis was performed using the Kolmogorov- Smirnov, Spearman, Mann-Whitney, chi-square and t tests (<0.05). The results found that the medical
professors are aware of the Code of Medical Ethics and recommend its application during all modules of the course. A minority updated their knowledge of the subject frequently, have read the code completely and
used it to prepare their lessons. We concluded that the higher the self-assessment of knowledge about medical ethics and the importance of this for the professor’s own training, the greater the interest in using the
Code in relation to his or her students, specifically in the preparation and implementation of lessons.