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Health and human rights: an area of neglect in the core curriculum?
  1. Joseph Robert Fitchett1,
  2. Elena Ferran2,
  3. Katherine Footer3,
  4. Natasha Ahmed4
  1. 1Imperial College London, School of Public Health, Wright–Fleming Institute, St Mary's Hospital, London, UK
  2. 2University College London, London, UK
  3. 3London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
  4. 4University College London, Institute for Human Rights, London, UK
  1. Correspondence to Mr Joseph Robert Fitchett, Imperial College London, School of Public Health, Wright–Fleming Institute, St Mary's Hospital, 56 St Dunstan's Road, London W6 8RA, UK; joseph.fitchett{at}doctors.org.uk

Medical ethics and law education in the UK is undergoing continuous transformation. In parallel, human rights teaching with respect to health is expanding as a distinct field. Yet a resistance to the inclusion of human rights in the medical ethics and law curriculum persists. In response to Stirrat and colleagues, this article seeks to highlight the mutual benefit that could be derived from an integration of human rights into the already established medical ethics and law teaching in medical schools. It proposes that incorporating human rights into the curriculum would add value to traditional medical ethics and law teaching and provide a promising opportunity to enhance the interest from the student body.

  • Consensus statement
  • education for healthcare professionals
  • education/programmes
  • human rights
  • medical education
  • medical ethics and law
  • medicine curriculum
  • tomorrow's doctors

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Medical ethics and law education in the UK is undergoing continuous transformation. In parallel, human rights teaching with respect to health is expanding as a distinct field. Yet a resistance to the inclusion of human rights in the medical ethics and law curriculum persists. In response to Stirrat and colleagues, this article seeks to highlight the mutual benefit that could be derived from an integration of human rights into the already established medical ethics and law teaching in medical schools. It proposes that incorporating human rights into the curriculum would add value to traditional medical ethics and law teaching and provide a promising opportunity to enhance the interest from the student body.

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Footnotes

  • All four authors contributed equally.

  • Competing interests None.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.