The virtue of the virtual real or not

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The virtue of the virtual real or not?

• Georgia Testa
• Lecturer, Medical Ethics
• g.testa_at_leeds.ac.uk

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PPD Year 2 Online Ethics Tutorials

• Medical ethics teaching is integrated into the
  clinical curriculum.
• Should make sense as part of the ICU in which it
  is integrated.
• PPD Y2 Valuing Diversity
• Purpose of tutorials awareness and
  understanding of value diversity, the ethical
  issues raised, the implications for medical
  services/practice.

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Subject matter

• Disability
• Pharmaceutical industry
• Breaking bad news disclosure, harm
• Alternative therapies their place in medicine
• Race
• Class and education
• Addiction
• Mental health
• Domestic violence and abuse

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Why virtual/online tutorials?

• Move to use of e-technologies in teaching.
• Problems of space in the curriculum.
• Engaging teaching method relevant to the
  students.
• But is the subject matter appropriate learning
  objectives, the skills or understanding to be
  developed?

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Ethics

• Discursive, interactive.
• Awareness and understanding of considerations.
• Assessment of strengths, weaknesses, problems,
  implications of different views and arguments.
• Develop the ability to support own views, develop
  arguments.
• MedEth develop non-judgmental attitude in the
  face of diversity, make justifiable ethical
  decisions.

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Why online?

• Asynchronous
• More time to think about/prepare contributions.
• More time to think about contributions of others.
• Reading/research is introduced when it makes
  sense/relevant to the discussion.
• Gives opportunity to quieter, less confident
  students.

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Did it deliver? Tutors said..

• Evidence in many cases that students had put a
  great deal of thought into their contributions.
• More articulate, detailed and insightful.
• More contribution and more equitable in many
  cases.
• Freer discussion.
• More autonomy students developed their own
  interests, took greater ownership of the process.

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What students said

• Learnt more about the ethics topic.
• Complexity of ethical issues.
• Importance of discussing ethics to understanding
  and to reach good decisions.
• Learnt about themselves.
• Would affect their behaviour in real life.
• Learnt more about people/society/medicine.
• Widened awareness.
• Made them think.

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• Value of listening to others.
• Some came out of their shell more confident.
• Fear held them back missed opportunity.
• Initial negative view of the process changed by
  following and then participating in the blog.
• Hard but worthwhile.
• Negative the process, the topic, others
  contributions, their tutors.

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What were they asked?

• You have participated in the ethics blog. You
  should now reflect on this experience
• How has participating in the ethics blog helped
  you to learn more about the ethical issue that
  was the topic?
• Has it affected the way that you think about
  medicine?
• Has it affected the way that you think about
  others in society?
• Be sure to provide reasons justifying your
  responses.

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For the future

• Reformulate student guide objectives, benefits,
  requirements.
• Feed into tutor training and guidance.
• Student familiarity with software.
• Online is not a second-best option.
• Not a replacement for face-to-face when is
  online appropriate?