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Ethics and professionalism medical question bank

Practise every ethics and professionalism topic with explained SBAs.

Recall Engine has 550+ ethics and professionalism questions across 20+ topics in 2 body systems. Every question explains each option.

questions
550+
topics
20+
topic notes
20+
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Ethics and professionalism by body system

Ethics and professionalism has 20+ topics in 2 body systems. Each section shows how many questions it has and every topic it covers.

General principles

4 questions across 1 topic. It also has 1 topic note.

  • Basic sciences in clinical reasoning

Ethics, law, and communication

550+ questions across 20+ topics. It also has 20+ topic notes.

  • Abortion: ethics and law
  • Adult safeguarding, confidentiality, and professional duties
  • Confidentiality
  • Confidentiality: disclosure and the law
  • Consent for children: competence, best interests, and confidentiality
  • Data protection
  • Email etiquette
  • End-of-life care: ethics and decisions
  • Ethics committees and research misconduct
  • Ethics of ageing: capacity, advance directives, and end-of-life law
  • Justice and equality in mental health
  • Justice and equality in mental healthcare in Egypt
  • Maternal-fetal conflict
  • Medical ethics and Egyptian regulations
  • Medicine as a profession
  • Mental capacity
  • Mental capacity: assessment and best interests
  • Neonatal ethics: viability, withdrawing treatment, and palliative care
  • Patients and the role they play in healthcare education
  • Patients and the role they play in learning
  • Professional practice
  • Professionalism
  • Professionalism and good medical practice
  • Research ethics
  • Social media and professionalism
  • Teamwork and leadership

Ethics and professionalism sample questions

These 3 are published ethics and professionalism questions shown exactly as students see them. Open an answer to see why it is right and why every other option is wrong.

Question 1 · Ethics and professionalism, Preclinical

Researchers recruit residents of an orphanage into a trial because they are easy to reach, although the scientific question does not require this population. Which requirement for ethical research is not met?

  1. A. Fair subject selection
  2. B. Favourable risk-benefit ratio
  3. C. Social value
  4. D. Community partnership
  5. E. Scientific validity
Show the answer and explanation

Answer: A. Fair subject selection

Orphans are a vulnerable population. In fair subject selection the scientific objectives of the study guide inclusion criteria and targeted populations, and convenient (vulnerable) groups should not be targeted.

Why the other options are wrong

  • B. Favourable risk-benefit ratio: A favourable risk-benefit ratio means potential benefits are enhanced and risks are identified and minimised.
  • C. Social value: Social value requires that ethical clinical research lead to improvements in health or advancement in generalisable knowledge.
  • D. Community partnership: Community partnership requires ethical clinical research to involve the community in which it occurs.
  • E. Scientific validity: Scientific validity needs an appropriate hypothesis, design, tool, sampling and sample size, and data analysis.

Key point: Convenient vulnerable groups should not be targeted, because scientific objectives should guide who is included.

References

Question 2 · Ethics and professionalism, Preclinical

Before a patient is treated as lacking capacity, what must have happened?

  1. A. His relatives have given their opinion about what is best for him
  2. B. His treatment has been put off until later
  3. C. A local court has reviewed the lawfulness of his detention
  4. D. The reasons behind a best interests decision have been documented
  5. E. All practical steps to help him have been taken without success
Show the answer and explanation

Answer: E. All practical steps to help him have been taken without success

A patient should not be treated as lacking capacity unless all practical steps to help him reach capacity have been taken without success. Examples include avoiding jargon, using pictures, using translators, treating concurrent pain, allowing time, a quiet setting, a relative or friend present, and asking at the best time of day.

Why the other options are wrong

  • A. His relatives have given their opinion about what is best for him: Relatives' and friends' opinion about what is best is gathered when working out best interests.
  • B. His treatment has been put off until later: The decision may be put off when the person will regain capacity and treatment is not urgent.
  • C. A local court has reviewed the lawfulness of his detention: Review by a local court is a right of a detained patient.
  • D. The reasons behind a best interests decision have been documented: Reasons are documented for a best interests decision, which is used when patients lack capacity.

Key point: A patient should not be treated as lacking capacity unless all practical steps to help them reach capacity have been taken without success.

References

Question 3 · Ethics and professionalism, Preclinical

In England, Lina, 14, attends with her mother after a dog bite to the forearm. She understands the cleaning and simple sutures proposed under local anaesthetic, their risks, and what happens without them, and she agrees. A month later the team plans a high-risk, irreversible reconstructive operation for a different problem, and the surgeon wants to rely on her earlier consent as proof that she is competent. How should her capacity to consent to the operation be decided?

  1. A. Assess it again for this specific, higher-risk decision
  2. B. Accept it, because she was competent for the earlier procedure
  3. C. Presume she lacks capacity until she reaches 16
  4. D. Ask her mother to consent instead of assessing Lina
  5. E. Refer the decision to the court before discussing it with her
Show the answer and explanation

Answer: A. Assess it again for this specific, higher-risk decision

The GMC states that capacity depends on the young person's ability to understand and weigh the options rather than on age, and that capacity for straightforward, relatively risk-free treatment does not necessarily extend to complex treatment with high risks or serious consequences. The reconstruction is a new, higher-stakes decision, so Lina's understanding of its nature, purpose, risks, alternatives, and the effect of declining must be assessed for that decision, after full information.

Why the other options are wrong

  • B. Accept it, because she was competent for the earlier procedure: Competence is decision-specific: capacity for a simple, low-risk procedure does not show capacity for a complex, irreversible operation, so her earlier consent to sutures settles nothing about the reconstruction.
  • C. Presume she lacks capacity until she reaches 16: In England a young person under 16 may consent if mature enough to understand that decision; a fixed age bar would ignore the maturity Lina has already shown.
  • D. Ask her mother to consent instead of assessing Lina: Parental consent is relied on when the young person lacks capacity, so Lina's own capacity for the operation must be assessed first.
  • E. Refer the decision to the court before discussing it with her: Courts resolve disputes that cannot be settled informally, such as a competent refusal of life-saving treatment; nobody has yet assessed Lina or disagreed.

Key point: A child's competence to consent is judged for each decision: capacity for a simple, low-risk procedure does not prove capacity for complex, high-risk treatment, so reassess when the decision or its risks change.

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