A Study to Assess Knowledge regarding Medical Ethics among Undergraduates in Shri B M Patil Medical College, Bijapur, Karnataka

Background: “Always doing what is in the best interest of the patient” should be the ethical behavior of doctors.The recent increase in litigation against doctors is an issue of immediate concern which says that Doctors and health professionals are confronted with many ethical problems in there profession regularly. The reasons for these are social, economic, professional, judicial and others.Objective: To assess the knowledge among undergraduate medical students on medical ethics. Materials and methods: A cross sectional study was conducted on final year part I year medical students of Shri B M Patil Medical College, Bijapur Karnataka in the month of august 2013. The data was collected by students usingsemi structured questionnaire. Results: Out of the 136 respondents 82 (60.2%) were males and 54 (39.8%) females. In our study 70(51.5%) of the respondents were of the opinion that medical ethics is very important in their profession. Only 31(22.8%) thought by following ethical principles it’s possible to avoid legal issues from the patients. 92(67.6%) of the students were in the favour of euthanasia. Conclusion: Even though the medical ethics has been included in the syllabus of MBBS by Medical council of India the knowledge about the ethical issues was low among students . Hence there should be sufficient training classes, CME programmes, workshops, conferences to stress the importance of ethical practice and to make the doctors confident enough to deal the ethical dilemma themselves and to adopt principles for better professional efficiency.