A window of opportunity: ethics and professionalism in the obstetrics and gynecology clerkship.

Educational experiences of short duration may have substantial educational impact if they occur when the learner is at an appropriate maturational level. Medical educators agree that students rapidly internalize professional values and attitudes during clinical clerkships, thus making clerkships the ideal time to teach ethics and professionalism in medicine. At Stony Brook School of Medicine, we utilize these concepts by incorporating a structured ethics and professionalism exercise into the 3rd-year obstetrics-gynecology clerkship. Students utilize a team approach in a Medicine in Contemporary Society exercise that requires them to work up and present a patient case from an ethical, social, cultural, legal, and/or economic perspective in an interactive setting. In this report, we describe our 12 years of experience with this program including nearly 1,300 medical students.