Table 1 Summary of categories and sub-categories, as well as participants’ sample quotes about the core competencies and tasks of faculty members in medical ethics
Categories | Sub-categories | Quote Sample |
|---|---|---|
Teaching | Teaching medical ethics | “Faculty members have the most significant role in teaching medical ethics to learners because learners face them daily. (No 2. Female) |
Providing educational advice in medical ethics field | “[Faculty members] should be trained in more specialized medical ethics topics that are related to their field of specialty so that they can be referred to or consulted with when needed in their group”. (No 11. Female) | |
Facilitation in medical ethics | It is possible to entrust the training of undergraduate students to clinical faculty members who are not ethics experts but are familiar with ethics.” (No 5. Female) | |
Research | Conducting and supervising dissertations in medical ethics | “You can contact faculty members in various fields and encourage them to consider joint dissertations with students in medical ethics.” (No 4. Female) |
Conducting projects in medical ethics | “In addition to supervising research ethics committees, faculty members should consider ethical aspects in conducting and designing studies.” (No 3. Male) | |
Providing advice to individuals or committees regarding codes of ethics in research | “In prescriptive or recommended, “developing codes, guidelines or instructions, outside of the target discipline is intangible and inapplicable for that target discipline’s specialists.” (No 5. Female) | |
Peer reviewing projects in the field of medical ethics | “Faculty members with the competency of medical ethics can be present in research committees as peer reviewers.” (No 2. Female) | |
Developing guidelines in medical ethics | “Faculty members can help by having ethical oversight in writing treatment guidelines with considering medical ethics issue.” (No 13. Female) | |
Management of organizational ethics in healthcare | Management of organizational ethics’ activities | “Faculty members should know the principles of management, policy-making, and policy-evaluation so that later they can ethically manage the issues happening in the public healthcare domain, such as ethical issues in quarantine, vaccination, or compulsory healthcare system programs.” (No 5. Females) |
Planning of organizational ethics’ policies | “Decision-makers should be familiar with the philosophical perspectives of ethics when decisions are made regarding the general principles of management, especially in areas such as resource allocation.”(No 12. Male) | |
Communication skills | Resolving conflicts based on principles of ethics | “Sometimes, patients argue with us…Someone shouts at the ethics faculty members in front of their students, and then you want them to resolve conflicts in such situations, lead and guide, and ethically solve the issues.” (No 7. Male) |
Teamwork in medical ethics field | “Teamwork skills are required to resolve ethical issues of various stakeholders.” (No 8. Male) | |
Moral reasoning | Critical analysis of ethical problems | ... Critical thinking taught me that such actions are immoral and any moral argument about them is weak and unjustifiable.” (No 8. Male) |
Resolving ethical problems | “Faculty members should be able to review and analysis problems and challenges and make decisions to solve them.” (No 2. Female) | |
Ethical policy- making and decision- making | Cooperation in the dissemination of medical ethics | “If we want medical ethics and related concepts to be spread and breached in medical teams, we have no choice but to use the power and capacity of collaboration with all colleagues in the ethics field.” (No 5. Female) |
Providing advice to managers, policy-makers and planners in the field of medical ethics | “Country’s resources are limited, if we use, for example, 5% of health resources for certain patients, is it right? Or, we should spend this 5% on the common diseases of the country, to benefit more patients; Some special patients die because we did not provide facilities. The different perspectives we have are important. Managers at general levels, not at a philosophical level, but at related details (for example, justice and resource allocation) should be trained and receive a consultation, and then face problems.” (No 12. Male) | |
Ethical decision-making | “Faculty members should participate hospital’s ethics committees as they can make better decisions and discuss problems. We need committee members who are scientists familiar with ethics, but we don’t have enough of such members.” (No 14. Male) | |
Leadership in promoting medical ethics | “Discussing or developing medical ethics in the academic environment without the leading of stakeholders seems meaningless.” (No 12. Male) |