Institute of the History, Philosophy and Ethics of Medicine, Ulm University, Parkstraße 11, 89073, Ulm, Germany.
Sci Eng Ethics. 2020 Jun;26(3):1827-1845. doi: 10.1007/s11948-020-00215-3. Epub 2020 Apr 15.
German medical students are not sufficiently introduced to the ethical principles and pitfalls of scientific work. Therefore, a compulsory course on good scientific practice (GSP) has been developed and implemented into the curriculum of medical students, with the goal to foster scientific integrity and prevent scientific misconduct. Students' knowledge and attitudes towards GSP were evaluated by a pre-post-teaching questionnaire survey (n = 239). Most participants initially had startling knowledge gaps in the field. Moreover, they were not acquainted with core institutions on GSP, the office of ombudsperson and the nationally binding guidelines on GSP. The pre-post-teaching comparison showed statistically significant improvement in all areas tested; moreover, after the course participants confided more trust in GSP institutions. Applying ethical rules into practice can be challenging; therefore, students need to learn to work independently with guidelines on GSP and should be introduced to institutions providing further guidance. As our study has shown, students are very willing to pursue a scientific career based on integrity and honesty, however, they lack the knowledge how to do so. In light of our results, we therefore recommend to integrate courses on GSP already at an early time into the mandatory curriculum of medical students.
德国医学生尚未充分了解科学工作的伦理原则和陷阱。因此，我们开发并将一门关于良好科学实践（GSP）的必修课程纳入医学生的课程中，旨在培养科学诚信并防止科学不当行为。通过教学前-教学后问卷调查（n=239）评估学生对 GSP 的知识和态度。大多数参与者最初在该领域的知识明显存在差距。此外，他们不了解 GSP 的核心机构、监察员办公室以及具有国家约束力的 GSP 准则。教学前-教学后的比较显示，所有测试领域均有统计学意义上的显著改善；此外，课程结束后，参与者对 GSP 机构的信任度有所提高。将伦理规则应用于实践可能具有挑战性；因此，学生需要学会独立使用 GSP 指南，并应向提供进一步指导的机构介绍。正如我们的研究表明，学生非常愿意在诚信和诚实的基础上追求科学事业，但他们缺乏相关知识。有鉴于此，我们建议将 GSP 课程尽早纳入医学生的必修课程中。
