Is there value in taking the time in the curriculum to teach ethics?
Not only is there value in teaching ethics, it is a must. To get a driver’s licence you must first pass a test setting out the “Rules of the Road.” Similarly, before graduating and being licensed to practice dentistry, it is necessary for dental students to learn and be tested on the technical aspects of procedures they can perform and to be informed about professional codes of conduct, also known as a “Code of Ethics.”8 How codes of conduct are learned can be problematic. Deinhart (1995) criticizes ethical codes. “First, he argues that codes cannot and do not alter behaviour. This is because as Ladd (1985) notes, “Those to whom it (a code) is addressed and who need it most will not adhere to it anyways, and the rest of the good people in the profession will not need it because they already know what they ought to do.”9 How should ethics be taught to dental students? Teaching ethics must not be isolated to just teaching the written code solely by classroom lectures which do not engage
