Abstract

Teaching medicine means teaching the knowledge and abilities and requires academics to have not only wide competence but also specific personality traits that enable the teacher to become an authority for his students. Between 2006 and 2007 we studied these problems on the population of students of the Faculty of Medicine at the Medical Academy of Gdańsk. A survey, conducted on third year students, was repeated three years later on the same group, then sixth year students.

The aim of the study was to find if three years of studying medicine had any impact on assessment of ethical attitudes of academic teachers.

In the academic year of 2009/2010 a survey was conducted on 157 students of the Faculty of Medicine of the Medical University of Gdańsk. A survey evaluated students’ opinions about the presence of important ethical values in the activity of academic teachers of the Medical University of Gdańsk and included 12 positive statements related to ethical attitudes presented by academic teachers. In the sixth year of studies, average evaluation of 2 out of 12 of these ethical attitudes increased, while evaluation of 10 others diminished. Further analysis of the results shows a spectacular change for the worse in traits such as P10-punctuality (in 1-5 graduation M from 2.98 to 1.97) and preservation of low results for P1-fair assessment of knowledge and abilities of students, having the lowest score in third year students. Only two ethical traits had a higher score in more experienced students. These were trustworthiness and a positive attitude towards students who are eager to ask questions and provoke discussion.