CHEATING IN MEDICAL-SCHOOL - A SURVEY OF 2ND-YEAR STUDENTS AT 31 SCHOOLS

Background. Although there have been a number of studies of cheating i n universities, surprisingly little has appeared recently in the liter ature regarding academic dishonesty among medical students. Method. To assess the prevalence of cheating in medical schools across the count ry, class officers at 31 of 40 schools contacted distributed a survey in the spring of 1991 to their second-year classmates. The survey cons isted of questions about the students' attitudes toward cheating, thei r observations of cheating among their classmates, and whether they ha d themselves cheated. The results were analyzed using contingency tabl es, t-tests, Pearson correlations, and one-way analysis of variance. R esults. Of the 3,975 students attending the 31 schools, 2,459 (62%) re sponded. Thirty-nine percent of the respondents reported witnessing so me type of cheating among classmates during the first two years ofmedi cal education, while 66.5% reported having heard about such cheating. When reporting about themselves, 31.4% admitted cheating in junior hig h school, 40.5% in high school, 16.5% in college, and only 47% in medi cal school. Reports of cheating varied across medical schools, but no relationship was found between rates of cheating and medical school ch aracteristics. Men were more likely to report having cheated than were women. The best predictor of whether someone was likely to cheat in m edical school was whether they had cheated before, although the data s trongly support the role of environmental factors. Medical school hono r codes exercised some effect on cheating behavior, but the effect was not large. Conclusion. About 5% of the medical students surveyed repo rted cheating during the first two years of medical school. The studen ts appeared resigned to the fact that cheating is impossible to elimin ate, but they lacked any clear consensus about how to proceed when the y became aware of cheating by others. The guidance students appear to need concerns not so much their own ethical behaviors as how and when to intervene to address the ethical conduct of their peers.