Medical ethics education must not end at graduation

Medical ethics is most needed when doctors start practising. Yet this is also when formal teaching stops. This must change.I believe, and have previously argued, that a greater focus on medical ethics education in the early years of practice would likely reduce the number of disciplinary proceedings against doctors.1 Once in practice, doctors must undertake continuing professional development, but there’s no explicit requirement for any ethics education.Teaching about ethics should focus on the situations and temptations that early career doctors are most likely to face, rather than the rare ethical dilemmas discussed in medical school. Resident doctors are far more likely to be asked for a private prescription of antibiotics by a family member than to decide who should get the last ventilator in a pandemic. They are more likely to be tempted to amend clinical notes retrospectively than to be asked to euthanise a patient.As disciplinary tribunals are often…