Structured Case-Based Ethics Discussion for Trainees and Faculty on Dermatopathology

INTRODUCTION: Ethical and professional dilemmas are part of the day-to-day practice of medicine, including within dermatopathology (e.g., ethical implications of self-referring skin biopsies for pathology interpretation). There is a need for teaching aids that dermatology educators can easily access to help provide ethics education. METHODS: We held an hour-long, faculty-facilitated, interactive, virtual discussion about ethical issues in dermatopathology. The session followed a structured, case-based format. We administered anonymous online feedback surveys after the session and used the Wilcoxon signed rank test to compare participants’ before and after responses. RESULTS: Seventy-two individuals from two academic institutions participated in the session. We collected 35 total responses (49%) from dermatology residents (n = 15), dermatology faculty (n = 14), medical students (n = 2), and other providers and learners (n = 4). Feedback was largely positive, with 21 attendees (60%) indicating they learned a few things and 11 (31%) indicating they learned a great deal. Additionally, 32 participants (91%) indicated they would recommend the session to a colleague. Our analysis showed that attendees had a greater self-perceived level of achievement for each of our three objectives after the session. DISCUSSION: This dermatoethics session is structured so as to be easily shared, deployed, and built on by other institutions. We hope that other institutions will use our materials and results to improve upon the foundation presented here and that this framework will be used by other medical specialties seeking to foster ethics education in their training programs.