Transforming medical ethics education: a scoping review of experiential, digital, and AI-integrated pedagogies

Abstract

Medical ethics education plays a central role in preparing health professionals for complex clinical decision-making. However, rapid technological advances, evolving healthcare systems, and increasingly intricate ethical dilemmas have highlighted potential limitations of relying exclusively on traditional lecture-based approaches.In response, a wide range of innovative educational strategies has emerged, yet a comprehensive overview of these approaches remains limited. This scoping review aimed to map and synthesize recent innovations in medical ethics education, identify their educational outcomes, and highlight key challenges and emerging trends across health professions education. A scoping review was conducted in accordance with established methodological frameworks and the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR). PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar were searched for English-language publications from January 2022 to March 2025. Two reviewers independently conducted the searches, screened titles and abstracts, assessed full-text reports, and charted data using predefined eligibility criteria and a standardized data-charting form. Disagreements at any stage were resolved through discussion; when consensus could not be reached, a third reviewer was consulted. Forty studies were included and synthesized descriptively using narrative and thematic analysis. The 40 included studies covered undergraduate, postgraduate, and continuing education across multiple health professions. The reported innovations were organized into four interconnected domains: (1) learner-centered pedagogical strategies, including experiential, case-based, problem-based, game-based, and discussion-based learning; (2) technology-enhanced approaches, including immersive technologies, digital platforms, mobile learning, and AI-related curricula; (3) reflective and authentic assessment approaches, including portfolios and project-based or multimodal assessments; and (4) implementation enablers, particularly faculty development, institutional support, and protected curricular time. Across the included literature, authors reported outcomes related to ethical sensitivity, moral reasoning, learner engagement, reflective capacity, and preparedness for digital and AI-related ethical challenges. Recent literature indicates growing interest in experiential, reflective, context-sensitive, and technology-supported approaches to medical ethics education. The included studies reported potentially beneficial educational outcomes; however, heterogeneity in study designs, settings, learner populations, and outcome measures, together with the absence of formal quality appraisal, limits conclusions about comparative effectiveness and causal impact. Faculty development, institutional support, and longitudinal curricular integration emerged as relevant implementation considerations. Further research using validated measures, longer follow-up, and appropriately controlled designs is needed to clarify which approaches may be beneficial, for whom, and in which contexts. The review protocol was registered on the Open Science Framework (OSF; DOI: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/UQSJC ).