Medical Ethics

The Certificate in Medical Ethics, in the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, is designed to prepare medical clinicians and ethics committee members to perform competent clinical ethics case consultation in a hospital, long-term care, or clinic setting. The Certificate consists of 12 credits divided between four courses, which are meant to be taken in sets of two concurrent 3-credits courses over one academic year.  One course per concurrent set is taken entirely on-line, and the second is a seminar-style course taken both on-line and through live interactive discussion either in-person or via web-conferencing.  Fall semester courses consist of MED ETH 500 Conceptual Foundations of Bioethics and MED ETH 510 Seminar in Conceptual Foundations of Bioethics.  These courses take students through basic tools of moral reasoning, including basic concepts in logic (fallacies, validity and soundness, etc.); descriptive and normative reasoning, positive and negative rights, basic approaches to morality (deontology and consequentialism, pluralism, etc.) and definitions of equality, and justice.  Spring Semester courses consist of MED ETH 530 The Practice of Clinical Ethics and MED ETH 540 Seminar in Clinical Ethics: Methods, Process, Skills & Traits.  These courses delve into the practical aspects of case analysis and the practice of ethics consultation in the clinical setting, with particular focus on the traditional range of topics in this emerging field of study (informed consent; surrogate decision making; professional rights of conscience; concepts of welfare and quality of life, etc.).  During the seminar portion of this concurrent set of courses, students are taught the basic tools of chart writing, information gathering, and conflict resolution techniques essential to the conduct of ethics case consultation in a clinical setting.