This site is intended for health professionals only


MDU launches online guide to help trainee doctors deal with ‘ethical dilemmas’

Doctors in training will be able to earn CPD points through a new online learning module that will help them get to grips with ethical dilemmas.

The MDU has produced the module in which doctors can test their knowledge by answering multi-choice questions on topics such as confidentiality, consent and capacity. It will also provide background reading material by MDU experts.

Examples of the scenarios in the module include how to deal with a drunk patient who threatens to hurt someone outside the surgery and a handling a concerned taxi driver's wife whose husband has suffered a grand mal seizure yet continues to work.

Dr Natalie Hayes, MDU medicolegal adviser, said: ‘Medical ethics are not always black and white and ethical dilemmas present in many ways.

‘There may be no easy answers to ethical problems in medicine, and no training can hope to cater for every eventuality in medical practice. But there are questions that doctors need to ask themselves, their patients and their colleagues in order to determine an ethical and legal course of action.'