‘Deeply Troubling Questions’: The Teaching of Ethics in Undergraduate Courses

Abstract

‘The professional is always at risk if the practice has not developed an ethical discipline.’ Ethical issues are challenging the providers of health care in the UK. Occupational therapists, physiotherapists and speech and language therapists cannot detach themselves from this development, and clinicians are confronted by a variety of moral issues while delivering patient care. A postal survey of all undergraduate courses in occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech and language therapy in the UK was undertaken to find out how the teaching of ethics and moral reasoning was tackled in these programmes. It was discovered that the teaching of ethics was not a particularly well developed aspect of many courses, and that there was some uncertainty about what, how and when the topic of ethics should be addressed. A strong theme that emerged was the need for integration of ethics teaching with professional studies so that ethics was not seen as just an academic subject. There was little agreement over procedures for giving codes of professional practice to the students. Some examples of innovative practice with regard to both these issues are given.