Documental review of publications on the teaching of bioethics in Latin American medical schools

Abstract

Bioethics is the study of ethical conflicts arising from advances in science, medicine and human behavior in the field of life sciences and health care. (Sanchez, 2013). The main question posed in the present systematic review is that, if, the teaching of bioethics in medical students, really: does it change behaviors? The objective is to describe the characteristics of individual studies conducted in Latin American universities with medical schools that teach bioethics in their academic curriculum. Seventeen bibliographic sources were reviewed, including 13 databases and 5 additional sources. A total of 531 articles were analyzed, of which 22 were selected for review (17 identified in the databases and 5 identified in other sources). Three duplicate articles were eliminated, leaving 19 prior to screening. The method used in this research was the PRISMA protocol. The PICO methodology was used as a selection strategy for the eligibility criteria, where 16 articles were excluded and 3 articles were included. As a result, it was obtained that the social representations of bioethics in women focused on the word “ethics” and in men it was concentrated on the word “moral”. According to the students, the moral practices and teaching techniques that most mobilized the classes were: deliberative practices - discussion of movies and/or TV series and case discussions. A consistent and significant relationship is found between moral reasoning and ethical sensitivity. Women present greater post-conventional reasoning, i.e., greater moral development. In conclusion, in Latin America, there are not enough studies in universities with medical schools that show behavioral changes in medical students after having received bioethics in their academic curriculum.