gms | German Medical Science

In the era of direct influence of for-profit companies on education, clinical practice, and clinical research, medical schools should teach ethics at undergraduate, postgraduate, and continuing education level. They should create a climate that promotes research ethics, to evaluate the adherence to rules, and, most of all, to educate about responsible conduct of research. At Croatian medical schools, teaching the principles of bioethics is incorporated into a mandatory undergraduate course on

research methodology for second-year students [Ref. 1], as well as into postgraduate and continuing education on principles of research in medicine (see Table 1 [Tab. 1]). This education is permanently supported by the Croatian Medical Journal, CMJ [Ref. 2], [Ref. 3], whose editors wrote the textbook “Principles of Research in Medicine”, both in Croatian and English [Ref. 4]. Medical ethics as an individual mandatory course for sixth-year students was available until 2006/2007 academic year at all medical schools, but was since then discontinued as a formal course at the Schools of Medicine in Zagreb and Rijeka, according to their publicly available programs for 2007/2008.

The CMJ has been promoting the culture of scientific integrity at the national level as a vital component of the research process [Ref. 2]. An important results of this initiative in 2007 was the creation of the Committee for Ethics in Science and Higher Education, as the national body appointed by the Croatian Parliament, with the aim to promote ethical norms and values in science and higher education [Ref. 5].