Master of Arts in Bioethics Degree Requirements
A minimum of twelve courses per calendar year will be offered in this program. Students will complete 30 credits (10 courses) from a broad array of offerings that include the following. All courses with an asterisk (*) are required.  No more than two independent study courses can be applied to the degree.

Click here for current semester courses (Fall 2008).

Course Descriptions

• Clinical Bioethics (BEHP401, 3 credits)*
• Justice and Health Care (BEHP402, 3 credits)*
• Ethics Across the Care Continuum (BEHP403, 3 credits)
• Biomedical Ethics & the Law (BEHP404, 3 credits)* 
• Research Ethics (BEHP405, 3 credits)
• Principles of Health Care Ethics (BEHP406, 3 credits)*
• Social Science and Bioethics (BEHP407, 3 credits)
• Ethics, Genetics, and Health Policy (BEHP408, 3 credits)
• Religion and Bioethics (BEHP409, 3 credits)
• Ethics Consultation Simulation Seminar (BEHP410, 3 credits)
• Public Health Ethics (BEHP411, 3 credits)
• Organizational Ethics I: Business, Professionalism, and Justice (BEHP412, 3 credits)
• Organizational Ethics II: Ethical Leadership for a Changing Healthcare Environment (BEHP491-Special Topics, 3 credits)
• History of Medicine & Bioethics (BEHP413, 3 credits)
• Special Topics (BEHP491, often delivered in a summer seminar, on-campus format)
• Master's Research Capstone (BEHP492, 3 credits)*
• Independent Study (BEHP493, 1-3 credits)

Clinical Topics in Bioethics (3 credits)
Course Number: BEHP401
Instructor: Mark Kuczewski, PhD
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course will provide an overview of the major areas of clinical biomedical ethics. Participants will gain familiarity with the terminology, resources, and major frameworks of ethical analysis in biomedical ethics. Issues that will be examined and analyzed include problem-solving methods, the theory and practice of informed consent, end-of-life decision making, physician-assisted suicide, pediatric ethical dilemmas, resource allocation and problems posed by managed care, research ethics, and environmental ethics. Extensive use of case discussion and analysis will help to develop the participants’ ethical problem-solving skills.
Click here to view course sample lecture, "Methods of Bioethics: The Four Principles Approach, Casuistry, Communitarianism." 

Justice and Health Care (3 credits)
Course Number: BEHP402
Instructor: Kayhan Parsi, JD, PhD
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course will provide an overview of justice and health care with a special emphasis upon the developing world. We will read from a variety of sources to better understand what justice means generally and what justice means with regard to health care. Readings will come from the following books: Pathologies of Power by Paul Farmer, The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs, Medicine and Social Justice by Rhodes, Battin and Silvers, Ethical Dimensions of Health Policy by Danis, Clancy and Churchill.

Ethics Across the Care Continuum (3 credits)
Course Number: BEHP403
Instructor: Mark Kuczewski, PhD
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course will prepare students to identify biomedical ethical issues in a setting such as long-term care, rehabilitation care, psychiatric care, dentistry, and alternative medicine and to develop moral frameworks for addressing these issues.  These objectives will be met by considering the current literature on ethical issues in these settings, analyzing cases and issues from these health-care delivery sites, and exploring theoretical questions concerning how the principles and frameworks of biomedical ethics can be adapted to apply in these settings.
Click here to view course sample lecture, "Introduction to Rehabilitation Ethics." 

Biomedical Ethics and the Law (3 credits)
Course Number: BEHP404
Instructor: Erin Egan, MD, JD
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course serves as an introduction to biomedical ethics and the law. Traditionally, the law has had a significant influence upon the development of bioethics; more recently bioethics has been shaping legal decisions and legislation. After a brief historical introduction to bioethics and the US legal system, we will survey a number of seminal legal cases. These cases touch upon areas such as reproduction, end of life care, the doctor-patient relationship, standards of care, new technologies and death and transplantation. We will also regularly refer to various codes of medical ethics.  Being a seminar, this course will be discussion-based. At times, lectures, guest speakers and video vignettes will be used throughout the duration of the course. Supplementary reading will be required in addition to the main text we will use. Students will also be expected to present cases during the course and briefly present their papers at the end of the course.
Click here (ppt audio file) to view course sample lecture, "End-of Life Decisions."

Research and Ethics (3 credits)
Course Number: BEHP405
Instructor: Mark Kuczewski, PhD
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This interactive seminar will explore ethical issues pertaining to scientific research, especially biomedical research.  Issues regarding scientific integrity, all aspects of human subjects research, and research involving animals will be analyzed.  The course is designed to help participants become comfortable with the language and literature of research ethics. It is especially helpful to clinical investigators and members of Institutional Review Boards (IRB) as the application of federal regulations to particular cases will be probed in depth.
Click here to view course sample lecture, "Human Subjects: Investigator-Researcher Relationship."

Principles of Health Care Ethics (3 credits)
Course Number: BEHP406
Instructor: Kayhan Parsi, JD, PhD & John Hardt, PhD
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course will serve as an introduction to different ways of thinking through and identifying ethical problems in health care. We will begin with some standard approaches to health care ethics, such as the four principles approach (using the principles of autonomy, justice, beneficence, and non-maleficence); then we will treat traditional moral theories (such as deontological, consequentialist, and virtue ethics); and finally, we will end with some critiques of traditional approaches (feminist and narrative ethics).  As the course proceeds, students will consider the way in which bioethics, as an ethical enterprise, is socially embedded within a culture that maintains particular norms and traditions. By examining the ways in which bioethics is socially embedded, students will be well prepared to treat cross-cultural issues. We will explore the questions: What does it mean to do bioethics within a multicultural, multi-ethnic society? How can we ensure that it is done in a way that is culturally sensitive, without abandoning ourselves to the kind of ethical relativism that makes impossible ethical critiques of medical practice?  For each week's discussion, students will be assigned a case study or exercise that fits with the topic under consideration. In doing these case studies, they will be able to apply the moral theories/principles to real situations, thus gaining some facility in working with these moral tools. Our goal is to get students to practice the skills and apply the knowledge that is the topic of the week.

Click here for course introduction video on YouTube
Click here to view course sample lecture, "Kant and Respect for Autonomy."

Social Science and Bioethics (3 credits)
Course Number: BEHP407
Instructor: Lena Hatchett, PhD, MPH
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course will review the theoretical work on social science (anthropology, sociology) and moral reasoning as it pertains to the discipline of bioethics, its philosophical roots, and the body of social science work in bioethics. This class will critically examine a number of current bioethical issues in the United States and internationally. The course considers how both bioethical dilemmas, and the values, principles, rights, etc. that serve as their foundation, are shaped by patients' and health professionals' cultural values and beliefs about concepts of self/personhood, body, life, and death. This course will also explore how broader, socio-cultural factors relating to power, economics, gender, science, and the media influence bioethical dilemmas and their resolution. Students will learn how to use the technique of self-reflexivity to understand cultural values.

Click here for course introduction video on YouTube

Ethics, Genetics & Health Policy (3 credits)
Course Number: BEHP408
Instructor: John Hardt, PhD & Nanette Elster, JD, MPH
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course will provide an introduction to genetic ethics and a survey of topics that constitute the professional and popular literature in the field. Topics to be considered include, but are not limited to, gene patenting, human cloning, and race and genetics. Classes will be topic driven and will draw upon a variety of sources including a recent genetic ethics text and an anthology of articles on various topics within the field. The ethical questions that genetic technological advance poses to our understanding of human identity and social justice will serve as the organizing themes of the course.

Religion & Bioethics (3 credits)
Course Number: BEHP409
Instructor: Fr. Kevin O'Rourke, OP, JCD, STM & John Hardt, PhD
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course will consider the assumptions concerning the human person which form the basis for Catholic and Secular Bioethics. It will also examine the role of medicine and ethics in other faith traditions (Protestantism, Judaism, Islam). It will consider some of the more important ethical issues which arise from these concepts, and consider the role of theology and law in seeking solutions to clinical cases. The role of the physician, patient, and family will be the focal point in the medical-ethical scenario.
Click here part 1 | part 2 (video files) to view course sample lecture, "Religion and Bioethics."

Public Health Ethics (3 credits)

Course Number: BEHP411

Instructor: Lena Hatchett, PhD, MPH

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course will introduce the student to public health through a focus on ethical issues emergent in public health practice and research. The course covers a broad array of topics in ethics through an examination of case studies drawn from all subfields of public health. The relationship between ethics, policy and culture is highlighted in an effort to place ethical issues within a broader, ecological approach. Emphasis is placed on practical and clinical approach to public health ethics in an effort to assist public health practitioners in their role as public health advocates. A case-based approach will assist in fostering knowledge and skills in public health ethical analysis. Since evidence based medicine and practice are increasingly pervading public health and health policy, through the readings, the course will pay critical attention to the value and limits of evidence-based medicine and practice.

Organizational Ethics I:  Business, Professionalism, and Justice (3 credits)

Course Number: BEHP412

Instructor: Mark Kuczewski, PhD

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course examines ethical issues in health care from the vantage point of decision makers who shape the system, e.g., physicians within a group practice, administrators within a health system, or advocates within a community. In particular, issues of balancing fidelity to the mission of a health-care organization with limitations emanating from its operating or profit margin will be considered in detail. The social and economic context of health care in the United States will be overviewed as the background for considering the responsibilities social justice entails to self, one's profession, the various institutions of which a healthcare profession is a member, one's patients, and the underserved. The course is a month-long hybrid of online learning and a three-day intensive experience on the campus of Loyola University Medical Center (Maywood, IL).  Course prerequisites: none

Organizational Ethics II: Ethical Leadership for a Changing Healthcare Environment (3 credits)

Course Number: BEHP491 (Special Topics)

Instructor: Mark Kuczewski, PhD

COURSE DESCRIPTION

History of Medicine & Bioethics (3 credits)
Course Number: BEHP413
Instructors: Kayhan Parsi, PhD & John Hardt, PhD
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course seeks to situate and examine the emergence and development of the field of bioethics within the history of medicine and the ethical concerns embodied in medicine’s practice. The opening weeks of the course will provide an overview of the history of medicine. The remainder of the course will examine how bioethics emerged within this broader history of medicine and continues today as a distinct discipline. The course will be anchored by several history texts and supplemented with primary source materials to further examine key documents, persons, and events in the field of bioethics.

Master's Research Capstone (3 credits)
(Formerly Research in Bioethics and Health Policy)
Course Number: BEHP492
Instructors: Mark Kuczewski, PhD, Kayhan Parsi, JD, PhD, John Hardt, PhD, Lena Hatchett, PhD, Kevin O'Rourke, OP, JCD, STM
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This capstone course provides an opportunity for the student to develop a conceptual or empirical research project under the direction of a mentor. The project culminates in production of a short manuscript suitable for peer review by an appropriate journal.

Independent Study (1-3 credits)
Course Number: BEHP493