Abstract

VELAZQUEZ AVINA, Jacobo; PULIDO CEJUDO, Abraham; RUIZ SUAREZ, Michell  and  HURTADO LOPEZ, Luis Mauricio. Assessment of the bioethical knowledge in residents and tenure physicians of General Surgery at the General Hospital of Mexico. Cir. gen [online]. 2011, vol.33, n.4, pp.248-254. ISSN 1405-0099.

Objective: To measure the bioethical knowledge in tenure physicians and general surgery residents. Setting: General Hospital of Mexico. Design: Prospective, cross-sectional, comparative, and observational study. Statistical analysis: Student's t and Kruskal-Wallis tests. Methodology: We evaluated 22 physicians and 61 residents of the four years of the General Surgery speciality, to whom a questionnaire based on four clinical cases, elaborated by the University of Toronto, was applied to assess their ability to recognize bioethical conflicts. Results: We obtained a total of 52 answered questionnaires (62%), 15 graduated surgeons with an age average of 48,6 years and 37 surgical residents with an age average of 26,5 years. Only 12% of the bioethics problem in the four clinical cases was clear. 53% of problems related to justice, 30% in autonomy and 28% in charity. The fourth year resident group has the major average of bioethics knowledge, followed of those of second and first year and last was the graduated surgeons and the residents of third year. The surgeons with bioethics formation recognized a greater number of problems. Conclusion: The low score obtained in the questionnaire is translated in a deficient capacity to recognize bioethics problems, as much by graduated surgeons as by residents of general surgery

Keywords : Bioethics; general surgery; teaching.