Differences between characteristics of medical and law students; No (%)
| Medical students (M) | Law students (L) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Characteristic | (nM=127) | (nM1=64) | (nM2=63) | (nL=168) | (nL1=75) | (nL2=93) | p* M/L† |
| *t-test for age and study year, χ2for others, p shown if ≤0.05 (“–” means p>0.05). | |||||||
| †No significant (p≤0.05) differences were found when comparing groups from the same faculty, except for ethical training of medical students (p<0.001). | |||||||
| ‡Self-reported identification with cultural origin. Some students did not indicate their culture. | |||||||
| §Medical students indicated participation either in the medical ethics seminary taught to 2nd year students or in the ethics part of the legal medicine course. Law students: various kinds of teaching in high school or in other, e.g. philosophical or theological, faculties. | |||||||
| Group M1 : 64 medical students at the end of their 5th year in 1996. | |||||||
| Group M2 : 63 medical students at the beginning of their 5th year in 1996. | |||||||
| Group L1 : 75 first to fourth year law students from an “international law” lecture in 1996. | |||||||
| Group L2 : 93 mostly first year law students from a “law and medicine” lecture in 1996. | |||||||
| Authors’ note: This table is adapted from one already published in Medical Education.24 | |||||||
| Mean age (SD) | 24.4 (8.2) | 24.7 (3.8) | 24.2 (2.4) | 22.1 (4.1) | 22.1 (1.5) | 22.1 (5.3) | <0.001 |
| Minimum/maximum | 21/52 | 22/52 | 21/35 | 18/52 | 19/28 | 18/52 | |
| Study year, | 5.0 (0.09) | 5.0 (0.1) | 5.0 (0.0) | 1.7 (0.8) | 2.4 (5.9) | 1.1 (6.2) | <0.001 |
| mode/range | 5/1 | 5/1 | 5/0 | 1/4 | 2/2 | 1/4 | |
| Ethical training§ | 75 (59.5) | 58 (90.6) | 17 (27.0) | 13 (7.9) | 4 (5.3) | 9 (10.0) | <0.001 |
| Culture‡: | – | ||||||
| USA/Canada | 5 (4.1) | 1 (1.6) | 4 (6.6) | 6 (3.6) | 2 (2.7) | 4 (4.4) | – |
| North-Europe | 10 (8.1) | 6 (9.7) | 4 (6.6) | 27 (16.3) | 16 (21.3) | 11 (12.1) | 0.04 |
| Switzerland | 85 (69.1) | 47 (75.8) | 38 (62.3) | 91 (54.8) | 40 (53.3) | 51 (56.0) | 0.01 |
| South-Europe | 15 (12.2) | 5 (8.1) | 10 (16.4) | 29 (17.5) | 11 (14.7) | 18 (19.8) | – |
| Other | 8 (6.5) | 3 (4.8) | 5 (8.2) | 13 (7.8) | 6 (8.0) | 7 (7.7) | – |