ArticleJournal of general internal medicine2008
Changes in medical students' attitudes towards end-of-life decisions across different years of medical training.
Article in Journal of general internal medicine, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 47 citations in OpenAlex.
- Attitudes of undergraduate medical students towards end-of-life decisions: a systematic review of influencing factors.BMC medical education · 2025Pooled it
- Predictors of Intercultural Sensitivity in Medical Students: An Assessment in a Turkish University in an Era of Global Healthcare.Journal of immigrant and minority health · 2026Article
- Psychological Factors Influencing Attitudes towards Euthanasia, Assisted Suicide and Palliative Care among Medical Students and Doctors in Training.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Medical students' and residents' views on euthanasia.BMC medical ethics · 2023Article
- Knowledge and attitudes toward euthanasia among final year pharmacy and law students: a cross-sectional study.Journal of pharmaceutical policy and practice · 2023Article
- Assessing Medical Students' Confidence towards Provision of Palliative Care: A Cross-Sectional Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Medical Faculty Students' Views on Euthanasia: Does It Change With Medical Education?Alpha psychiatry · 2021Article
- New Zealand medical students' views of euthanasia/assisted dying across different year levels.BMC medical education · 2021Article
- Medical Assistance in Dying: the opinions of medical trainees in Newfoundland and Labrador. A cross- sectional study.Canadian medical education journal · 2019Article
- Attitude Towards End of Life Communication of Austrian Medical Students.Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education · 2019Article
- Withholding Treatment From the Dying Patient: The Influence of Medical School on Students' Attitudes.Journal of bioethical inquiry · 2019Article
- Changes in ethical attitudes of clinical laboratory professionals after teaching them ethics using three different methods.Medical journal of the Islamic Republic of Iran · 2019Article
- Medical students and end-of-life decisions: the influence of religion.Future healthcare journal · 2018Article
- Article
- Establishment of medical education upon internalization of virtue ethics: bridging the gap between theory and practice.Journal of medical ethics and history of medicine · 2017Article
- A comparison of attitudes toward euthanasia among medical students at two Polish universities.Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education · 2013Article
- The impact of pediatric palliative care education on medical students' knowledge and attitudes.TheScientificWorldJournal · 2013Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDecisions to forgo life-sustaining medical treatments in terminally ill patients are challenging, but ones that all doctors must face. Few studies have evaluated the impact of medical training on medical students' attitudes towards end-of-life decisions and none have compared them with an age-matched group of non-medical students.
objectiveTo assess the effect of medical education on medical students' attitudes towards end-of-life decisions in acutely ill patients.
designCross-sectional study.
participantsFour hundred and two students at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. MEASUREMENTS: Completion of a questionnaire focused on end-of-life decisions. MAIN
resultsThe number of students who felt that cardiopulmonary resuscitation must always be provided was higher in non-medical students (76/90 (84%)) and medical students with less training (67/84 (80%) in year 1 vs. 18/67 (27%) in year 5) (p < 0.001). Discontinuing life-support therapy was more accepted among senior medical students compared to junior medical and non-medical students (27/66 (41%) in year 5 vs. 18/83 (22%) in year 1 and 20/90 (22%) in non-medical students) (p = 0.003). An unexpectedly large proportion of non-medical students (57/89 (64%)) and year 1 medical students (42/84 (50%)) found it acceptable to administer fatal doses of drugs to patients with limited prognosis. Euthanasia was less accepted with more years of training (p < 0.001). When making decisions regarding limitation of life-support therapy, students chose to involve patients (98%), doctors (92%) and families (73%) but few chose to involve nurses (38%).
conclusionsMedical students' attitudes towards end-of-life decisions changed during medical training and differed significantly from those of non-medical students.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.