Medical humanities: an aid to ethical discussions.

'The ethical landscape', the title given to part of a course devised by Mr. Moore, is described in full in this paper. The whole course is a new adventure in medical education designed to help students to explore the ethical problems in the practice of medicine. The 'ethical landscape' is seen through discussion based on passages from literature depicting doctors' and patients' dilemmas. As the results summarized in the tables show, the students found the course well worth while, and thought that they had gained a new insight into the problems with which they would be confronted and also into their own personalities and those of their fellow students whom previously they had only known superficially. The Chairman of the course, Mr. Moore, was also subjected to assessment from his students, because on the skill of the Chairman such a course would fail or succeed.