8 February 2001
BMA commends Dundee University's honest doctors move
The British Medical Association today commended the University of Dundee's Medical School for its pioneering work towards ensuring the integrity of tomorrow's doctors. The University has taken a proactive stance on the national issue of academic misconduct by giving all medical students a written code of practice on what constitutes unacceptable behaviour and having them sign a declaration of integrity and honesty.
Ms Jennie Ciechan, Chair of the BMA's Scottish Medical Students Committee said:
"Dundee University Medical School have led the way in their proactive approach to ensuring that the potential for fraudulent and dishonest practices is limited. By asking every student to sign a declaration asserting their individual honesty and integrity, they have focused students' minds and impressed upon them just how seriously this issue is treated.
"The Medical School are to be commended in their approach. They pioneered research into the extent of fraudulent practice and despite very low levels being uncovered, they demonstrated that they are in no way complacent by instituting a declaration of integrity."
The BMA's comments come in the wake of a Dundee University study published last week in the British Medical Journal (Vol 321), exploring medical students' attitudes and reported behaviour in a series of hypothetical scenarios depicting academic misconduct. The study found that a tiny minority (2%) were prepared to cheat outright by copying answers in a degree examination. Genuine confusion did exist however at the other end of the scale, for example in quoting directly from reference works, over what was acceptable practice.
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Dundee Professor David Levison said after the study: "The results give medical schools up and down the country food for thought. There is no reason to suppose that students at Dundee are any different from students at any other medical school. What the study shows is that we need to be explicit to our students about what constitutes academic misconduct and unacceptable behaviour. At the University of Dundee we have already taken the results of this study on board and produced a written code of practice for students giving clear guidelines on these issues."
The study was initiated by Dr Sarah Rennie, then a student, and Dr Joy Crosby, Curriculum Facilitator with the full co-operation of the Medical School. An anonymous questionnaire was completed by 461 students in all years at Dundee University Medical School. The questionnaire had 14 scenarios in which a fictitious student, "John", engaged in dishonest behaviour. For each scenario, students were asked whether they felt John was wrong and whether they had done or would consider doing the same.
Most students felt that most of the scenarios were wrong. However, the proportion of students reporting that they had engaged in or would consider engaging in the scenarios varied from 2% for copying answers in a degree examination to 56% for copying directly from published text and only listing it as a reference. About a third of students reported that they had engaged in or would consider engaging in behaviour described in four of the scenarios: exchanging information about a clinical examination, writing "nervous system examination normal" when this hadn't been performed, lending work to others, and copying published text without appropriate referencing./ends