The knowledge of Interns about Medical Ethics at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences in 2015

Medical ethics is one of the branches of professional applied ethics that tries to apply ethics to clinicians and practitioners in medical ethics as well as to ethical decision making in medicine. The aim of this study was to evaluate the knowledge of interns of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences in the field of medical ethics.

 This cross-sectional study was performed on 60 male and female internship students at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences with conventional sampling method. Data collection tool was a questionnaire based on rest’s model of ethical judgement with 20 questions  (score range: 0-20). Data were analyzed using SPSS 11.5.

 Overall, 40% of individuals (24 persons) were male. The mean score of questionnaire was 11.4±9.1. Ten individuals (16.7%) had good knowledge, 50 (83.3%) had moderate knowledge. There was no significant difference in the final score between the two genders (p = 0.527).

Interns' knowledge of medical ethics is moderate, however, there is a need for further ward-specific ethical assessment studies and improvement of ethical education in each ward is recommended.