Medical ethics contributes to clinical management: teaching medical students to engage patients as moral agents.

OBJECTIVES: In order to teach medical students to engage more fully with patients, we offer ethics education as a tool to assist in the management of patient health issues.

METHODS: We propose that many dilemmas in clinical medicine would benefit by having the doctor embark on an iterative reasoning process with the patient. Such a process acknowledges and engages the patient as a moral agent. We recommend employing Kant's ethic of respect and a more inclusive definition of patient autonomy drawn from philosophy and clinical medicine, rather than simply presenting dichotomous choices to patients, which represents a common, but often suboptimal, means of approaching both medical and moral concerns.

DISCUSSION: We describe how more nuanced teaching about the ethics of the doctor-patient relationship might fit into the medical curriculum and offer practical suggestions for implementing a more respectful, morally engaged relationship with patients that should assist them to achieve meaningful health goals.