Teaching biomedical ethics as professionalism in the United States

Abstract

Medical education in the United States has incorporated the teaching of biomedical ethics into its efforts to promote "professionalism" as an area of competence. I outline the reasons for the popularity of this approach and show that it is a promising movement that has the possibility for a salutary renewal of the vocation of the physician. I also explore some of the pitfalls of this approach such as the trivialization of the concept of professionalism. Nevertheless, this approach may provide a foundation for fruitful dialogue with other approaches to teaching bioethics to physicians-in-training.