CBEC faculty, Dr. Bushra Shirazi leads a session on Communication Skills with residents belonging to urological specialties at SIUT. Learning how to communicate with patients and their families is the backbone of clinical ethics.
SIUT INTEGRATES BIOETHICS IN THE UROLOGY CURRICULA
Asad Shahzad*
In 2020, I was given the task of organizing the residency program of Urology at SIUT. Two postgraduate programs run concurrently at SIUT, one under the College of Physicians and Surgeons (CPSP) and the other MD/MS under the Sindh Institute of Medical Sciences (SIMS). Since residents belonging to either of these programs have to work together in the same premises, their curricula have to be as similar as possible. This was the first challenge that the faculty of Urology took up and successfully addressed. While devising the curriculum it dawned on the faculty that two additional modules were particularly necessary i.e. Biostatistics and Bioethics. Both subjects were considered pertinent to prepare residents for research but bioethics also holds immense importance within the clinical domain.
I kept searching and conversing with different people regarding the inclusion of bioethics in the curriculum. In all honesty, I did not know anything about the subject. I only had some vague ideas. I had always wished to create a space where frank conversations were allowed regarding pertinent issues in healthcare including end of life care, breaking bad news, and palliative care. I also wanted to change the culture of silence especially for our residents. In 2023 I came to the right place: CBEC. The faculty of CBEC listened to me and after careful deliberations drew up a curriculum containing 15 lectures that covered areas pertinent to bioethics including the importance of informed consent, maintaining privacy and confidentiality, and ethical issues at end of life. The curricula also include foundational concepts in research ethics and guide residents on obtaining ethical review clearance.
The Bioethics Lecture Series is now in its second cycle. Feedback from 15 students who attended all sessions in the first cycle has largely been positive, finding the lecture series useful and practical. Residents are often seen immersed and engaged in lectures. They are speaking their minds and there is a high probability that they take the correct message home.