This study described the relationships between academic class and student moral sensitivity and reasoning and between curriculum design components for ethics education and student moral sensitivity and reasoning. The data were collected from freshman (n = 506) and senior students (n = 440) in eight baccalaureate nursing programs in South Korea by survey; the survey consisted of the Korean Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire and the Korean Defining Issues Test. The results showed that moral sensitivity scores in patient-oriented care and conflict were (...) higher in senior students than in freshman students. Furthermore, more hours of ethics content were associated with higher principled thinking scores of senior students. Nursing education in South Korea may have an impact on developing student moral sensitivity. Planned ethics content in nursing curricula is necessary to improve moral sensitivity and moral reasoning of students. (shrink)

Thirty years ago when I, an attorney, took a tenure-track faculty position at an innovative, newly opened medical school, I was an oddity — truly, a stranger in a strange land. Today it is not uncommon for American medical schools to employ an attorney as a tenured or tenure-track member of its faculty. Over these last three decades, the educational roles and responsibilities of health law faculty who teach in law schools have become increasingly well defined, with numerous health law (...) courses and textbooks now generally accepted as part of the typical law school curriculum. However, the roles and responsibilities of attorney faculty members who teach in medical schools remain less clearly defined and likely are more individualized to the particular medical schools in which they teach. This essay explores some of the challenges and the opportunities which are given to attorney faculty members who teach in medical schools. (shrink)