Medical students' involvement in patient care

Ina recent issue of The Journal of Clinical Ethics, Peter A. Ubel and Ari Silver-Isenstadt reported on patients' willingness to participate in medical education.(1) Their findings and other data they refer to suggest that patients are generally willing to interact with medical students, but that this willingness may vary depending upon the clinical setting. The authors concluded that patients hold a right to information regarding students' participation in their care and that openness in this regard is valuable. The Council on Ethical and judicial Affairs (CEJA) of the American Medical Association (AMA) recently developed a policy that addresses the issues that were investigated by Ubel and Silver-Isenstadt.