During a period of rapid changes in healthcare and the transformation of medical education, the issue of developing the professional and ethical culture of future physicians emerges as one of the key concerns. Today's challenges – increasing multiculturalism, digitalisation, and the paradigm shift from "knowledge-instructor" to "value-mentor" – necessitate a profound reconsideration of the teacher's role. Their task is no longer limited to knowledge transfer or monitoring academic performance. Instead, the teacher becomes a full-fledged architect of the future physician's ethical worldview, influencing both value orientations and ways of thinking and professional self-affirmation.
The formation of such a culture is impossible without pedagogical interaction based on trust, dialogue, example, and co-creation. In this interaction, the teacher fulfils at least four interconnected roles: facilitator of ethical dialogue, mentor of intercultural competence, navigator of digital ethics, and researcher of contemporary ethical challenges. Let us examine these roles in a comparative dimension to identify their specifics, interrelationships, and integrative potential in professional medical training [2].
The role of the ethical dialogue facilitator involves creating a space for reflection, discussion, and contemplation of complex moral situations. This is not lecture-style material delivery but the organisation of a learning environment where students learn to listen, express positions, and accept ambiguity as an element of ethical reality. Facilitation methods (debates, case analysis, modelling of clinical situations) allow for the development of students' moral autonomy [1].
In turn, the mentor of intercultural competence focuses on the ethics of interaction in conditions of cultural diversity. Their task is to help students realise the moral value of "the other," avoid bias and stereotypes, and develop the capacity for empathetic dialogue. Universities in the USA, Canada, and the Netherlands actively practice models of immersion in multicultural contexts: volunteering in communities, participating in clinical projects with migrants, etc.
These roles are united by their dialogic nature, yet their specifics differ: the facilitator stimulates rational reflection, while the mentor encourages emotional openness and cultural adaptability. Both roles complement each other, forming comprehensive ethical thinking.
Entirely different challenges face the teacher as a navigator in digital ethics. With the emergence of new technologies (artificial intelligence, telemedicine, medical chatbots), new zones of ethical tension appear: privacy, responsibility for algorithmic errors, and the impact of digital systems on doctor-patient relationships. The teacher's task is to introduce these problems, initiate critical reflection on risks, and develop responsible solutions. Practices include case analysis, interdisciplinary discussions, and examination of legal frameworks for digital medicine [3].
The researcher's role, in turn, involves active participation in scientific updating of ethical education content. A teacher who does not monitor current trends in bioethics quickly loses relevance. In leading universities, teachers involve students in developing ethical guidelines, academic publications, and joint research projects. This creates a sense of student engagement in honest, ethical discourse.
Although the navigator and researcher work with different formats (the first focused on practical risks, the second on conceptual explorations), both roles are responsible for the relevance of ethical thinking in the changing healthcare environment.
A teacher's professional activity in the medical education system cannot be reduced to implementing one clearly defined function. On the contrary, the effective formation of a future physician's professional and ethical culture requires a harmonious combination of several pedagogical roles, each specific while simultaneously reinforcing others. Only integrating these functions ensures the integrity of pedagogical influence and meets contemporary challenges in medical training.
Facilitation without mentoring may lose the human dimension of interaction; intercultural sensitivity without digital ethics risks remaining abstract; research without dialogue with the audience becomes isolated academic activity. Modern medical schools require teachers not to have narrow specialisations but multifunctionality, the ability to flexibly combine communicative, ethical, technological, and analytical aspects of their work.
In leading medical schools worldwide, educational formats that rely on integrating several pedagogical roles are already being implemented. For example, students at the University of Copenhagen work with cases regarding using artificial intelligence in oncology. Within a single course, they:
- analyse specific clinical situations that have moral ambiguity (facilitator function);
- discuss cultural differences in the perception of technologies (mentoring component);
- consider ethical risks of algorithmic intervention in the treatment process (navigator role);
- form their proposals for clinical protocols based on substantiated ethical analysis (research component).
To clearly outline the logic of interaction between a teacher's functional roles, it is appropriate to present them in a comparative format. The table below summarises the main vectors of influence, types of pedagogical interaction, and key outcomes of each role:
Table 1. Comparative Overview of Key Teaching Roles in Shaping Medical Students’ Professional and Ethical Identity
As seen from the table, each of the four teacher roles has its logic of pedagogical influence to develop specific components of professional and ethical culture. At the same time, combining them within a holistic educational approach allows for a deeper result, forming a physician with knowledge and skills who can make responsible decisions in morally complex, multicultural, and technologically saturated clinical environments.
The integrative model of teaching activity is not a sum of separate components but a qualitatively new level of pedagogical culture that opens possibilities for the ethical transformation of medical education as a whole.
The teacher's role in forming future physicians' professional and ethical culture is multifaceted, dynamic, and highly responsible. Analysing the four key roles (facilitator, mentor, navigator, and researcher) allows us to comprehend the breadth of the pedagogical mission in medical education. Their holistic combination creates powerful potential for training a new generation of physicians who are qualified, morally resilient, open to others, and ready to make responsible decisions in an era of change.
Thus, the teacher's role in forming future physicians' professional and ethical culture is multifaceted, dynamic, and highly responsible. Analysis of the four key roles (facilitator, mentor, navigator, and researcher) allows us to comprehend the breadth of the pedagogical mission in medical education. Their holistic combination creates powerful potential for training a new generation of physicians – qualified, morally resilient, open to others, and ready to make responsible decisions in an era of change. The teacher lays the foundation for professional ethics not as an external requirement but as an internal norm of physician behaviour that determines the quality of interaction with patients, colleagues, and society.
References
1. Andersson H, Svensson A, Frank C, Rantala A, Holmberg M, Bremer A. Ethics education to support ethical competence learning in healthcare: an integrative systematic review. BMC Med Ethics. 2022. Vol. 23 (1). Р. 29. DOI: 10.1186/s12910-022-00766-z.
2. López Cabrera MV, Olivares Olivares SL, Heredia Escorza Y. Professional Culture in Medical Schools: A Medical Educator Interpretation. Med Sci Educ. 2020. Vol. 30 (1). Р. 281–286. DOI: 10.1007/s40670-019-00896-x.
3. Wohlfart, O., & Wagner, I. Teachers’ role in digitalizing education: an umbrella review. Educational Technology Research and Development. 2022. Vol. 71. P 339–365.
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