Medical or clinical ethics offers essential guidance to healthcare professionals and is ideally incorporated into medical education. Its instruction has become increasingly important due to rapid advancements in medical science and the diverse cultural and socioeconomic contexts in which medicine is practiced. This study aimed to explore how clinical/medical ethics is taught at two medical schools in Kenya through focus group discussions with undergraduate students and key informant interviews with lecturers and academic administrators. Although medical/clinical ethics is included in the curriculum approved by the Kenya Medical and Dental Practitioners Council and forms part of medical training, a gap was observed between theoretical instruction and practical application. Students, lecturers, and administrators from both institutions highlighted the scarcity of role models and mentors, the need for improved communication skills, the absence of formal assessment of ethics, and the lack of structured training for faculty teaching ethics. In the short term, these gaps could be addressed by training faculty in medical/clinical ethics and providing access to relevant reference materials. Long-term strategies should focus on developing context-specific teaching resources and fostering mentorship skills among lecturers to provide ethical role modeling.
