Clarify and Resolve Ethical Issues in the Teaching of Clinical Practice Based on the Four-topics Theory——An Example of Patients' Refusal to the Practice of Medical Students

This article addressed the ethical issues during teaching medical students the clinical practice, which focused on the conflict between the best interest of patients and the obligation to accept practice of medical students. It firstly evaluated the ethical issue based on the "four topics", which included medical indications, patients' preferences, quality of life, and contextual features to clarify the core clinical ethical problem. Then it provided suggestions based on the viewpoints in literature as well as the authors' own experiences, including respecting patients' autonomy and right of informed consent, and improving physician-patient communica- tion. Based on the above discussion, this article provided some insights into how to solve this kind of ethical problem for mentors and medical students.