FAS - Bioethics

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences, in collaboration with the Center for Bioethics and Health Law, offers a Master of Arts in Bioethics. Designed for clinicians, lawyers, and students of the humanities and social sciences, the program emphasizes the philosophical foundation of bioethics and offers opportunities for students to observe clinical ethical reasoning in clinical practica and to pursue in-depth research. This interdisciplinary program allows students to combine study in ethical theory, philosophy and history of medicine, cultural studies, health law, public health, and the social sciences.

Joint JD/MA and MD/MA programs with the Schools of Law and Medicine afford students the opportunity to pursue both the MA in Bioethics and professional degrees in law or medicine in less time than would be required to pursue the degrees separately. In addition, the joint-degree programs allow students to integrate their dual interests during their professional education.

In order to complete the MA in Bioethics, students take core seminars and elective courses, participate in clinical practica, and write a master's thesis to ensure sufficient breadth and depth in the interdisciplinary field of bioethics. The program may be completed in one calendar year, though some students take an additional semester or year to pursue their thesis projects. Core seminars are small and discussion-oriented, with ample opportunity for students to refine their ideas and develop skills of argumentation. Elective courses are offered in a variety of departments, interdisciplinary programs, and schools, including anthropology, cultural studies, history and philosophy of science, law, philosophy, public health, and sociology. Students are encouraged to tailor their course of study to meet their individual needs and may petition for specific courses to serve as electives.

The clinical practica are designed to familiarize students with ethical issues as they arise in clinical settings. Clinical Practicum I is accompanied by seminars in medical sociology and case-based clinical ethics. Students are assigned to teams in UPMC-Health System hospitals and participate in work rounds, clinics, nights on call, and clinical ethics consultation and teaching. Clinical Practicum II affords students more intensive experience in a single clinical setting typically related to their thesis projects. Students with previous extensive clinical experience may petition to substitute an elective for one practicum.

Thesis projects enable students to focus their research on an area of particular interest under the guidance of a thesis advisor and committee of faculty members. Students share their ideas and learn about faculty members' research in the supportive environment of a student-faculty thesis seminar.

Contact Information

Main Office: 300 Medical Arts Building

Phone: (412) 647-5700

Fax: (412) 647-5877

E-mail: bioethic@pitt.edu

Web site: http://www.pitt.edu/~bioethic/

Co-directors: Alan Meisel and Kathleen M. DeWalt

Affiliated Faculty: ARNOLD (Medicine), BARNARD (Medicine), DeWALT (Anthropology), LEWIS (Psychiatry), MEISEL (Law), PARKER (Public Health), WICCLAIR (Medicine)

Research

Faculty affiliated with the MA in Bioethics carry out a wide variety of research on topics such as advance directives, AIDS and the quality of nursing care, the definition of death, district attorneys' attitudes toward end-of-life decision-making, ethics consultation, feminist approaches in bioethics, genetic testing, long term care, lung lobe donation and transplantation, minority members' participation in clinical research, physician-patient communication, palliative care, and required request for organ donation.

Facilities

The Bioethics Program draws on a number of facilities at the University of Pittsburgh. The most important is the Center for Bioethics and Health Law. Founded in 1987 as the Center for Medical Ethics, the Center for Bioethics and Health Law has become renowned for pioneering empirical research in bioethics, developing clinical ethics training programs and round-the-clock ethics consultation services, and drafting innovative bioethical policy. In addition to administering the Bioethics Program, the Center coordinates the Clinical Ethics Training Programs to train medical students and residents; a Research Ethics course for graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, residents, and faculty; and the Consortium Ethics Program to provide clinical ethics training to representatives of area hospitals. In addition to the Center, the program draws on the faculty and courses of several departments in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (Anthropology, History and Philosophy of Science, Philosophy, and Sociology), the School of Medicine, the Graduate School of Public Health, and the School of Law. The program also has access to a range of clinical settings associated with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Other Opportunities

In addition to pursuing the formal course of study, students in the Bioethics Program may participate in a variety of educational opportunities in bioethics, health law, and health policy at the University of Pittsburgh. These opportunities feature visiting scholars as well as University faculty, and allow students to engage with members of a national and international network of bioethics scholars. They include the Bioethics Colloquia, Bioethics Grand Rounds, Center for Bioethics and Health Law Journal Club, History of Medicine Lecture Series, Health Policy Institute Lecture Series, and the Literature and Medicine Discussion Group.

Admissions

Students are admitted to the program through the admissions committee for the IDMA in Bioethics. Applicants must submit the following:

Applicants to the joint JD/MA program may substitute LSAT scores, and applicants to the joint MD/MA program may substitute MCAT scores. International students must submit TOEFL scores. Completed applications are first considered February 1; applications are considered on a rolling basis until August 15 or until the class is filled.

Applications can be requested from, and should be returned to:

Director of Admissions

Center for Bioethics and Health Law

Medical Arts Building, Suite 300

3708 Fifth Avenue

Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3405

Phone: (412) 647-5700

E-mail: bioethic@pitt.edu

Web site: http://www.pitt.edu/~bioethic/

Applicants to the joint JD/MA and MD/MA programs must complete application to both the Bioethics Program and the School of Law or School of Medicine, and must observe the application deadlines for each program. Applicants interested in the joint-degree programs should request information on these degrees when seeking application materials.

Financial Assistance

A limited number of students may be funded through research assistantships at the Center for Bioethics and Health Law.

Degree Requirements

The minimal requirements established by the Graduate Faculty of the University, as described under General Academic Regulations beginning, and any additional requirements of FAS Graduate Studies described under FAS Degree Requirements, should be read in conjunction with program-specific degree requirements described in the following sections.

Requirements for the Master's Degree

To complete the MA, students must take a minimum of 30 credits and complete a thesis. Course requirements include nine credits of core courses, three credits of a restricted elective, six credits of clinical practica, and six to twelve credits of unrestricted electives and thesis research. The IDMA can be completed in three terms.

Core Courses

There are three required core courses:

Bioethics-a graduate-level introduction to classic topics, texts, and approaches in bioethics, and critical examination of the practice of bioethics itself

Philosophy of Medicine-an examination of key philosophical issues, such as causality, concepts of health and disease, production of knowledge, and paradigms of medical reasoning

Theoretical Foundations of Applied Ethics-an examination of classical ethical theories focusing on the relationship between ethical theory and ethical decision-making

Restricted Elective

The restricted elective is designed to provide a particular disciplinary perspective (for example, history or law) on issues in medicine and health care, or to focus on a particular aspect of health care (for example, research or public health). Recent offerings include Bioethics and Law, Conceptual Foundations and Ethics of Public Health, Cultural and Feminist Studies of Medicine and Technoscience, History of Medicine, and Medical Anthropology.

Clinical Practica

The clinical practica ensure that students become knowledgeable about the clinical setting and learn to identify normative issues in clinical cases, through clinical observation (including clinical ethics consultations and teaching), seminar discussion, and preparation of case studies.

Unrestricted Electives

Electives are offered in bioethics, as well as in complementary fields such as anthropology, cultural studies, history and philosophy of science, law, philosophy, public health, and sociology.

Thesis

Thesis research is conducted under the direction of program faculty to ensure that students develop both research skills and in-depth understanding of a topic in bioethics.

Program Courses

Core Courses

BIOETH 2658 Philosophy of Medicine

BIOETH 2661 Theoretical Foundations of Applied Ethics

BIOETH 2664 Bioethics

Restricted Electives (recent offerings)

Bioethics and Law

Cultural and Feminist Studies of Medicine and Technoscience

History of Medicine

Medical Anthropology

Research Ethics

Unrestricted Electives (recent offerings)

Dimensions of Aging: Culture and Health

Elderly and the Law

Environmental and Occupational Health Law

Ethics and the Public Life

Feminist Approaches in Bioethics

Feminist Theory

Gender, Race, and Public Policy

Genetics, Ethics, and the Law

Historical and Sociological Perspectives in Public Health

History of Ethics

Philosophical and Ethical Issues in Human Genetics

Science and Its Rhetoric