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A Comparison of Moral Intuitions about Professional Ethics between the Medical Students and Residents in a University Hospital

PARK SO YOUN 1 Ivo KWON 2 Oh Young Kwon 1 Tai-Young Yoon 1

1경희대학교
2이화여자대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study was designed to determine whether or not there are differences between the moral intuitionsof medical students and those of residents in clinical fields. A total of 370 of 490 (75.5%) students(n=340) and residents (n=30) at one university in South Korea responded to a survey consisting of theMoral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ30) and additional items on moral judgments concerning theduty to care during pandemic influenza. Both groups selected beneficence/non-maleficence (as opposedto autonomy or justice) as the primary ethical principle(s) in medical practice. The mean scores on a0~5 scale for the five moral foundations for the students were not significantly different from those ofthe residents (harm; 3.6 vs. 3.4, fairness; 3.5 vs. 3.3, loyalty; 3.1 vs. 3.0, authority; 2.9 vs. 2.8, sanctity; 3.1vs. 3.0, respectively). However, there was considerable variability in individual items forming the scalesfor the fairness foundation. Interestingly, when respondents chose justice first among ethical principles,they felt that physicians had a duty to treat patients with influenza, even if in doing so they placed themselvesor their families at risk (OR 2.27, 95% CI 1.23~4.18). Our data suggest that social intuitionismmay be useful for explaining differences in Korean physicians’ moral judgments and also that it may bean effective tool for feedback in medical ethics education.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.