"Bioethics Education at the Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy"

Graduate Degree Program Requirements
Masters in Arts in Bioethics & Health Policy (M.A.)
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 required courses: Clinical Bioethics, Justice & Health Care, Biomedical Ethics & the Law, Principles of Health Care Ethics and Masters Research Capstone. No more than two independent study courses can be applied to the degree.

Dean's Scholarships
We now have available a limited number of academic merit-based scholarships for newly admitted masters degree (M.A.) students starting Fall 2011 semester.

Professional Doctorate in Bioethics (D.Bioethics)
The program is 30 credits beyond the traditional thirty credit M.A. in bioethics and includes a practicum and a two-semester capstone course. Students choose one of three tracks of specialization – Clinical bioethics, Organizational bioethics or Catholic bioethics. Admission is highly competitive. Click here for information for completion of Practicum, Exam and Capstone for Doctoral Degree.

Certificate Programs
A certificate is awarded for completion of twelve credits (4 courses). Requirements for the Certificate include Clinical Bioethics, and at least one of the following: Biomedical Ethics and the Law, Justice in Health Care, or Principles of Healthcare Ethics. Students that wish to matriculate into the M.A. program may apply certificate credit toward the M.A. degree. Certificate applicants are not required to possess a graduate or professional degree.

Clinical Topics in Bioethics (3 credits)
Course Number: BEHP401
Instructor: Mark Kuczewski, PhD; Katherine Wasson, PhD, MPH
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; Chalmers Clark, 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.
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to view course sample lecture, "Introduction to Rehabilitation Ethics."

Biomedical Ethics and the Law (3 credits)
Course Number: BEHP404
Instructor: Nanette Elster, JD, MPH
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 Ethics (3 credits)
Course Number: BEHP405
Instructor: Emily Anderson, PhD, MPH
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.
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to view course sample lecture, "Human Subjects: Investigator-Researcher Relationship."

Principles of Health Care (3 credits)
Course Number: BEHP406
Instructor: Kayhan Parsi, JD, 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.

Ethics, Genetics & Health Policy (3 credits)
Course Number: BEHP408
Instructor: 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: John Hardt, PhD
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course is a thematic exploration of religion and medicine with a concentration on the Christian tradition of reflection on finitude, hope, despair, suffering, illness, and life. Jewish, Muslim, and secular sources will be included. The course’s readings will have dual foci. They will engage questions of human meaning in the face of finitude, suffering and death while also attending to the expanding horizon of biotechnology’s efforts to mitigate these human limits. This is a reading intensive course aimed to assist students in establishing familiarity with scholarly reflection on some of the larger questions of human purpose and meaning that underlie the field of clinical bioethics.

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.

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)

History of Medicine & Bioethics (3 credits)
Course Number: BEHP413
Instructors: Kayhan Parsi, PhD; Rana Hogarth, 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.

This course seeks to offer a substantive introduction to Christian ethics with particular focus on its application to bioethics. The course has two foci. First, it will offer a historical survey of the development and progression of Christian ethics from the ancient Greeks and biblical times to the 21^st century. Second it will consider the Christian vision of what it means to be a person and how that vision shapes an approach to bioethical reasoning through a consideration of themes including creation in God’s image, the gift of human freedom, the relationship of the body to the soul, sin, grace, the mystery of death, and the hope of bodily resurrection. Readings will range across the Christian traditions, Protestant and Catholic alike, with attention paid to similarity and divergence in these approaches. No prior theological training or faith commitment is presumed as this course is designed as an introduction to the field and its pertinence to bioethics.

This course offers a topical survey of bioethical issues pertinent to clinical practice in the Catholic context. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' document, Ethical and Religious directives for Catholic Health Care Services, 5th Edition, serves as the guiding document of the course. Topics and concepts considered include abortion, contraception, sterilization, nutrition and hydration, withdrawal of life support, care of the dying, cooperation, conscience, human dignity and personhood. This course aims to assist students in establishing a substantive familiarity with the positions and moral reasoning of the Catholic tradition in clinical bioethics through a consideration of Church documents, scholarly texts and articles and formative debates within contemporary Catholic bioethics.

This course involves an historical study of the development of the body of official Catholic Social Teaching (CST) specific to its impact on healthcare delivery in the United States. Current developments in select key social issues and movements are also addressed insofar as those issues and movements influenced healthcare delivery. The pastoral letters of the U.S. Bishops, especially their teachings on healthcare reform, also receive attention. The interface between religious faith and public policy debates is a constant concern throughout the course. Practical strategies for fostering a social justice consciousness in healthcare settings are also considered. Extensive use of case discussion and analysis will help to develop the participants’ understanding of the principles of CST and their application to the healthcare context.

This course will consider a major theoretical framework in bioethics that has emerged as a serious alternative to principle-based bioethics. In this course, students will gain an understanding of what narrative bioethics is, read theoretical texts related to narrative ethics, and also read a variety of narratives that relate to medicine and health care (stories, films, etc). The role of narrative in the ethics consultation process will also be explored. This course aims to equip students with a sophisticated understanding of narrative and the role it plays in medicine and bioethics.

This course introduces the individual, organizational, and structural factors in creating a cultural competent health care system. We will explore the important opportunities and challenges in defining and evaluating cultural competency strategies. The topics cover the role of racial and economic health disparities in the process of care and health outcomes, Cultural and Linguistic Appropriate Standards (CLAS) in health care, self-assessment and evaluation of institutional needs. Knowledge and skills gained in this course can be used to develop an advocacy role for evaluating and promoting cultural competency within a heath care system. Students will summarize their experience in the course through a multi-media presentation and proposal for building capacity to promote CLAS at their home institutions.

Advances in biotechnology and the life sciences are reshaping when life begins, how life is lived and when life ends. Developments such as the ventilator, in vitro fertilization, organ transplantation, gene therapy, stem cell therapies, and e-health technologies challenge long held perceptions of the intersection of law, medicine and society. These weighty challenges exemplify the reactive nature of law and the role that ethical dilemmas, and at times, ethical disputes play in establishing law and policy in a very diverse and pluralistic society. This class will explore the historical relationship between law and bioethics and examine how law and bioethics come together or may be at odds in resolving the many dilemmas raised by biotechnology. Issues such as the changing nature of the physician-patient relationship, the continuing evolution of informed consent, the intersection of commerce and science, the changing definition of death, the growing complexity of reproduction, and societal notions of privacy will all be discussed.

This course will provide an overview of empirical research in the increasingly interdisciplinary field of bioethics. We will examine the relationship between empirical data and normative claims and the potential pitfalls that may arise when using information about what “is” to determine what “ought” to be done. Students will gain familiarity with the range of quantitative and qualitative research methods commonly used in bioethics as well as the academic disciplines and theories on which those methods draw. We will review recent empirical studies in bioethics and critique choice of methods, presentation of data, and interpretation/application of findings to conclusions and recommendations. This course will examine empirical studies on ethical problems in medicine, public health policy, and clinical research. Discussions will be relevant to a range of professional settings.

This course will equip students with an advanced understanding of the seminal end of life care cases that have been addressed by the courts (e.g. Quinlan, Cruzan, Schiavo).

Clinical ethics is an important area of bioethics, and therefore is one of the concentrations in the bioethics doctoral program. As part of this concentration, students are required to take this practicum course in clinical ethics. The overarching objective of the practicum is to enable the student to work on a project which translates both general and discipline-specific information into clinical ethics practice. The student must demonstrate the capacity to utilize knowledge and make evidence-based decisions regarding clinical ethics issues, and exhibit leadership, creativity, and the ability to work well with others. The goal of the clinical ethics practicum is to provide students the opportunity to use knowledge and skills acquired in the academic program in a clinical setting (e.g. community hospital or academic medical center), under the direction of a preceptor at that setting. The practicum also affords an opportunity to develop and apply certain competencies that tend not to be well developed in academic coursework. Here, students learn about how ethical issues arise at the bedside, and how to help facilitate ethical decision-making and resolution. This practicum will expose students to the practical applications of clinical ethics. Students will be required to identify an appropriate mentor who will precept the students during the course of a semester. A faculty member will provide feedback and guidance during the course of the semester.

Organizational ethics is an important area of bioethics, and therefore is one of the concentrations in the bioethics doctoral program. As part of this concentration, students are required to take this practicum course in mission leadership and organizational ethics. The overarching objective of the practicum is to enable the student to work on a project which translates both general and discipline-specific information into organizational ethics and mission practice. The student must demonstrate the capacity to utilize knowledge and make evidence-based decisions regarding organizational ethics/mission issues, and exhibit leadership, creativity, and the ability to work well with others. The goal of the mission leadership practicum is to provide students the opportunity to use knowledge and skills acquired in the academic program in a professional setting (e.g. community hospital or academic medical center), under the direction of a preceptor at that setting. The practicum also affords an opportunity to develop and apply certain competencies that tend not to be well developed in academic coursework. Here, students learn about how ethical issues arise at the organizational level and how mission leaders play a role in responding to ethical concerns and issues. This practicum will expose students to the practical applications of organizational ethics. Students will be required to identify an appropriate mentor who will precept the students during the course of a semester. A faculty member will provide feedback and guidance during the course of the semester.

This course is an opportunity for doctoral students in our program to further develop a paper from their practicum experience and/or another course and revise it into a manuscript of publishable quality. The coordinator for this course, Dr. McGee, will serve as the faculty advisor to work with in reviewing the paper and providing critical feedback. In the first weeks of the course the student will identify a paper topic and the relevant journals in which the student may publish that paper. During the early part of this course, the student will revise and hone a thesis statement and write a first draft of the manuscript. After receiving feedback from the course coordinator the student will proceed to writing another draft of the manuscript. Finally, the student will revise the manuscript one last time, formatting it in the style of the journal identified, and submit it for a grade. The manuscript will also be submitted to the journal earlier identified.

This course is an opportunity for doctoral students to further develop a paper from their practicum experience and/or another course and revise it into a manuscript of publishable quality. This course builds upon Doctoral Capstone I (BEHP 423). The coordinator for this course, Dr. McGee, will serve as the faculty advisor to work with students in reviewing papers and providing critical feedback. In the first weeks of the course students will identify their paper topic and the relevant journals targeted for submission. During the early part of this course, students will hone a thesis statement and submit a draft of the manuscript. After receiving feedback from the course coordinator students will submit another draft of the manuscript. Finally, the student will revise the manuscript one last time, formatting it in the style of the journal submitted to, and submit it for a grade. The manuscript will also be submitted to the journal earlier identified.

Master's Research Capstone (3 credits)
Course Number: BEHP492
Instructors: Summer Johnson McGee, PhD
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.