Bioethics
Mission:As the largest Catholic, Jesuit academic medical center, bioethics is vitally important to how Georgetown University Medical Center educates, conducts research, and reaches into its communities. The University is home to many of the nation’s premier bioethics faculty members and leaders, and it’s commitment to ethics in medicine and science is clear in both the classroom and clinic.
Georgetown’s School of Medicine takes very seriously its efforts to educate medical students and residents about their ethical responsibilities as physicians and this commitment is reflected in our curriculum. Georgetown medical students are required to take at least two clinical ethics courses, and are offered the opportunity to take elective courses on bioethics and a number of other topics.
In addition to its medical curriculum, GUMC’s Center for Clinical Bioethics provides university-based ethics resources for individuals in the health care fields. The center is committed to the dynamic interplay between theory and practice, experience, and reflection. Center scholars bring expertise in theology, philosophy, basic science, and clinical practice to today's ethical challenges. The center seeks to promote serious ethical reflection and discourse in pursuit of a just society and health care that affirms the dignity and social nature of all persons.
The center also works in coordination with the University’s Kennedy Institute of Ethics, the Department of Philosophy, and faculty at the law center. Center scholars participate in internal review boards, the Georgetown University Hospital Ethics Committee, and interdisciplinary and post-care rounds.
The center also administers a unique MD/PhD combined degree program. Georgetown is also home to National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature, an organized and accessible record of scholarly and public opinion on bioethics issues that serves both as a reference library for the public and as an in depth research resource for scholars from the United States and abroad.
Leadership:
Carol Taylor, RN, Ph.D.
Director of the Center for Clinical Bioethics
Associate Professor of Nursing
Kevin FitzGerald, SJ, Ph.D.
David Lauler Chair for Catholic Health Care Ethics
Research Associate Professor of Oncology
