Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health, including those emerging from advances in biology, medicine, and technologies. It proposes the discussion about moral discernment in society and it is often related to medical policy and practice, but also to broader questions as environment, well-being and public health. Bioethics is concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, theology and philosophy. It includes the study of values relating to primary care, other branches of medicine, ethical education in science, animal, and environmental ethics, and public health.
The Hastings Center is an independent, nonpartisan bioethics research institute and think tank based in Garrison, New York. It was instrumental in establishing the field of bioethics and is among the most prestigious bioethics and health policy institutes in the world.
Ruth R. Faden is an American scientist, academic, and founder of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. She was the Berman Institute's Director from 1995 until 2016, and the inaugural Andreas C. Dracopoulos Director from 2014 to 2016. Faden is the inaugural Philip Franklin Wagley Professor of Biomedical Ethics.
Albert R. Jonsen was one of the founders of the field of Bioethics. He was Emeritus Professor of Ethics in Medicine at the University of Washington, School of Medicine, where he was Chairman of the Department of Medical History and Ethics from 1987 to 1999. After retiring from UW, he returned to San Francisco, where he co-founded the Program in Medicine and Human Values at Sutter Health's California Pacific Medical Center in 2003.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to ethics.
The philosophy of healthcare is the study of the ethics, processes, and people which constitute the maintenance of health for human beings. For the most part, however, the philosophy of healthcare is best approached as an indelible component of human social structures. That is, the societal institution of healthcare can be seen as a necessary phenomenon of human civilization whereby an individual continually seeks to improve, mend, and alter the overall nature and quality of their life. This perennial concern is especially prominent in modern political liberalism, wherein health has been understood as the foundational good necessary for public life.
Jonathan D. Moreno is an American philosopher and historian who specializes in the intersection of bioethics, culture, science, and national security, and has published seminal works on the history, sociology and politics of biology and medicine. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.
The National Core for Neuroethics at the University of British Columbia was established in August 2007, with support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Institute of Mental Health and Addiction, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund, the Canada Research Chairs program, the UBC Brain Research Centre and the UBC Institute of Mental Health. Co-founded by Judy Illes and Peter Reiner, the Core studies neuroethics, with particular focus on ethics in neurodegenerative disease and regenerative medicine, international and cross-cultural challenges in brain research, neuroimaging and ethics, the neuroethics of enhancement, and personalized medicine.
Clinical ethics support services initially developed in the United States of America, following court cases such as the Karen Ann Quinlan case, which stressed the need for mechanisms to resolve ethical disputes within health care. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations requirement for hospitals, nursing homes, and home care agencies to have a standing mechanism to address ethical issues has also fostered this development.
The Kennedy Institute of Ethics is one of the most prestigious bioethics institutes in the world. Located at Healy Hall, it was established at Georgetown University in 1971 as a bioethics center, think tank and library. Its first director, André Hellegers, said the institution's goal was to "bring expertise to the new and growing ethical problems in medicine today." The Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation granted $1.35 million to the Institute, contributing to the establishment of its Bioethics Research Library and providing for two Chairs. The Institute was soon in need of more financial support, which it received from Georgetown University and by several public, private and governmental grants. The philosopher Tom Beauchamp and the bioethicist Robert Veatch were among the first scholars to join the Kennedy Institute of Ethics. The institute features a top-ranked graduate program in applied ethics.
Human subject research legislation in the United States can be traced to the early 20th century. Human subject research in the United States was mostly unregulated until the 20th century, as it was throughout the world, until the establishment of various governmental and professional regulations and codes of ethics. Notable – and in some cases, notorious – human subject experiments performed in the US include the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, human radiation experiments, the Milgram obedience experiment and Stanford prison experiments and Project MKULTRA. With growing public awareness of such experimentation, and the evolution of professional ethical standards, such research became regulated by various legislation, most notably, those that introduced and then empowered the institutional review boards.
Jamie Lindemann Nelson is a philosophy professor and bioethicist currently teaching at Michigan State University. Nelson earned her doctorate in philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1980 and taught at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and St. John's University before moving to Michigan State University. In addition, Nelson was an Associate for Ethical Studies at The Hastings Center from 1990–95 and is both a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow and a Fellow of the Hastings Center. Nelson usually teaches courses on biomedical ethics, ethical theory, moral psychology, feminist theory, and philosophy of language.
The MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, founded in 1981, is a non-profit clinical medical ethics research institute based in the United States. Founded by its director, Mark Siegler, the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics aims to improve patient care and outcomes by promoting research in clinical medical ethics by educating physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals and by helping University of Chicago Medicine patients, families, and health care providers identify and resolve ethical dilemmas. The center has trained over 410 fellows, including many physicians, attorneys, PhDs and bioethicists.
Daniel Sulmasy is an American medical ethicist and former Franciscan friar. He has been Acting Director of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics and on the faculty of the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioetics was also named He is the inaugural Andre Hellegers Professor of Biomedical Ethics, with co-appointments in the Departments of Philosophy and Medicine at Georgetown.
Christine I. Mitchell is an American filmmaker and bioethicist and until her retirement in September 2022, the executive director of the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School (HMS).
Adnan A. Hyder is Senior Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Global Health at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health.
Jessica Fanzo is an American scientist. She is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Global Food and Agriculture Policy and Ethics at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. Prior to coming to Johns Hopkins, Fanzo was an assistant professor of Nutrition in the Institute of Human Nutrition and Department of Pediatrics at Columbia University. In January 2023, Columbia announced that Fanzo will rejoin its faculty as a professor in the Columbia Climate School.
