In Search of an Ethical Imperative: Exploring Medicine's Standard of Care as a Concept for Higher Education

Abstract

In a time when higher education faces a growing array of delivery formats such as interactive television and on-line courses, what ethical standards do we have to guide our profession? The purpose of this paper is to suggest that we might benefit from the medical field's concept of standard of care and the ethical obligations it implies. We now have the research-base to establish a standard of care for undergraduate education for traditional-age students and it is the thesis of this paper that this concept should form the basis for informing our practices and policies. The paper will also include some of the sources for developing a standard of care based on this body of research. Contrasting the way the medical profession has approached tele-medicine to how higher education has approached distance education is offered as an example of the implications for the application of the concept of standard of care to higher education.