Are our medical schools listening?

Today's Chronicle of Higher Education has an article (subscription required) that reveals a shocking survey report: More than one-third of the nation's medical students said medical ethics was missing from their required curricula, and less than half were aware of courses that covered bioterrorism or disaster preparedness. The survey also found that only 17 percent of the students were very satisfied with their courses.

You can find the results of the survey, conducted by the American Medical Student Association, here. The Association of American Medical Colleges, which accredits 125 medical schools across the nation, indicated that 124 of their schools indicated that they covered ethics in at least one required course. The student associated responded by saying: "It's possible that a medical school might address ethics in a single lecture, but what we're measuring are students' perceptions, and they feel that the schools aren't teaching them about these important, emerging topics."

Will anything come of this? Will our medical schools listen to their students' concerns? Considering that they are already trying to minimize the importance of this survey, the answer is quite obviously 'no'. What a shame. Our future doctors, and all the patients they serve, deserve better.