A STUDY OF ATTITUDES TOWARD MEDICOLEGAL RELATIONS AMONG MEDICAL STUDENTS AND LAW STUDENTS AT THE MEDICAL SCHOOL AND LAW SCHOOL OF ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY (MISSOURI)

Purpose. The purpose of this study is to measure the attitudes toward interprofessional relations of medical and law students. The study attempts to determine whether attitudes toward medicolegal relations are conditioned by attitudes toward the law, the process of professional education, and prior knowledge of medicolegal issues.;Results. The study indicates that medical students and law students hold different opinions about their interprofessional relationship and provides additional evidence that medical and law students lack basic knowledge about medicolegal issues. Analysis of data neither supports nor refutes that professional training changes the beliefs and value systems of medical or law students. This study concludes that students tend to respect the integrity of law enforcers and that the occupation of immediate family members and family involvement in medicolegal suits are not significant in influencing the professional ethics or behavior of medical or law students.;Implications. Information from this study indicates that current medicolegal education is deficient and that medical and law schools need to: identify specific medicolegal topics for inclusion in health law courses, develop teaching-learning experiences that will assist students to recognize their mutual responsibilities and limitations in medicolegal decision making, and recognize the importance of maintaining medicolegal competence in both professions.;Recommendations for further research are presented to encourage continued research by medicolegal educators in the underdeveloped topic of medicine and the law in modern society.;Procedure. Utilizing the Thurstone method of equal-appearing intervals technique, 75 judges are asked to scale 99 statements collected from medicolegal literature. Scale values and Q values for each statement are calculated and 22 items, representing equal steps along the entire attitude continuum from extreme favorableness to extreme unfavorableness, are selected to form the Attitude Toward Medicolegal Relations Opinionnaire. The Opinionnaire and the Attitude Toward the Law Scale are mailed to 603 medical and 541 law students at Saint Louis University. A total of 401 usable returns are analyzed to determine if significant differences occur in student attitudes toward medicolegal relations and toward the law in general.