Courses
Offers an introduction to fundamental issues and approaches in bioethics, provides an overview of the history of the field, and highlights the events that led to the birth and growth of bioethics. Introduces theoretical approaches to bioethics, public health policy, research ethics, ethics of genetics and science, and clinical ethics. Provides students with opportunities to gain from the experience of some of the most respected scholars in the field of bioethics.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Offers an introduction to central approaches and issues in bioethics. Includes a discussion of the history of the field and the issues that led to its birth and growth internationally. Introduces philosophical, empirical and non-empirical approaches to bioethics and core ethical issues in clinical care, public health, science and research. Provides a foundation for future study in bioethics.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Offers a continuation of the exploration of ethical theory and its use in bioethics begun in "Introduction to Ethical Theory". Utilizes the conceptual and methodological tools from "Ethical Theory" in analyzing topics and cases currently being discussed in bioethics. Although topics will change from year to year, common themes include: discussion of legal changes concerning end of life; the ethics of new reproductive technologies; ethical challenges concerning genome-editing technologies; and global ethical challenges such as climate change and resource allocation.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Explores the relationship between philosophical ethical theory and the practical world of bioethics. In particular, examines the classical accounts of moral obligation and virtue in the context of a variety of contemporary bioethical problems. Further presents the distinction between individual bioethics and collective bioethics, with the goal of determining how the theoretical grounding for these fields differ. The motivating questions are both methodological and substantive: First, how does theory contribute to bioethical investigations? And second, does reflection on ethical theory tell us what to do concerning particular, bioethical problems?
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
This course introduces some of the main methods used in bioethics research, scholarship and practice, including philosophical, legal, historical, religious, qualitative, and quantitative research methods. The strengths and weaknesses of each method in addressing bioethical questions or problems will be described. Each method will be illustrated with contemporary topical examples. In addition, one cross-cutting example of an issue addressed by all methods will be discussed.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Introduces critical thinking skills that are widely used in bioethics research and practice. Introduces argument mapping techniques and gives students practice extracting arguments from texts and mapping those arguments. Introduces students to common strengths and weaknesses of arguments and gives students practice in evaluating arguments.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
This course builds on Critical Thinking in Bioethics Scholarship 1. It builds on student training in argument mapping, identifying common strengths and weaknesses of arguments and evaluating arguments, formulating good arguments and expressing them in text, and writing critical essays.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Offers students a) a theoretical and practical foundation for identifying and analyzing ethical issues arising in clinical medicine and b) a survey of important current issues and problems in clinical ethics with c) a focus on case analysis and application of principles to problems. Includes interactive content and case-based materials.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Explores the theoretical justifications of human rights and their relationship to the contemporary human rights movement based in positive law and how human rights are operationalized. Reviews theories of human rights, evolution of human rights as law, and common ground and tensions between bioethics and legal approaches to human rights. Illustrates how bioethics and human rights concepts apply to key public health issues of our time, particularly as they relate to problems of inequality and inequity. Discuss issues including access to essential medicines, women’s health, disease surveillance and response to pandemics, and health claims of immigrants, refugees and prisoners.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
This course introduces students to the U.S. legal system and analyzes the relationship between law and bioethics. During the course, students will: (1) develop an understanding of the relevance of law for bioethics as a scholarly field and as a profession; (2) become familiar with legal structures, mechanisms, institutions, functions, and sources of law; (3) develop a critical appreciation of the complexity, flexibility, and evolution of law; and (4) develop a set of core legal skills applicable to bioethics scholarship and practice. Specific topic areas include legal duties of health care providers, end-of-life decisionmaking, ownership in body parts and informed consent, health inequities, assisted reproduction, and public health. No background in law is required to take this course.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Introduces students to the primary ethical challenges in the global food system and explores ethical issues in the United States food system. Provides students with the opportunity to think critically about a variety of conflicting views about the ethics of animal agriculture, healthy eating efforts and decision-making about food. Uses theories and tools from practical ethics, political philosophy, and theories of justice to shed light on these issues.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Examines the ethics and policy issues raised by emerging biomedical technologies, including stem cell science, genetics/genomics, neuroscience, and synthetic biology. Integrates primers on the relevant science with discussion of the ethics and policy issues raised by the design, conduct and integration of the science into research, clinical care and commerce.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Explores past, present, and future ethical, legal, social and policy issues at the intersection of infectious disease and genomics. Due to the social nature of contagion, infectious disease challenges individualistic assumptions in bioethical models with public health dilemmas requiring attention to the relationships and interactions between hosts, vectors, pathogens, and environments. Focuses on the potential ethical, legal, and social implications of emerging genomic science and technology for infectious disease control. Each class focuses on a specific type of infectious disease highlighting different notions of disease causation and mode of transmission. Explores in three related contexts: research, clinical practice and public health. Addresses the enduring bioethical concerns about social responsibility, stigma, and the challenge of balancing individual interests and protections against risks of harms to others and to public health.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Introduces students to the concept of vulnerability from an interdisciplinary lens of ethics, philosophy, medicine, and public health. Discusses how special protections for vulnerable populations can impact research and clinical care at the individual and population level. Presents examples of vulnerable populations of children (eg. children with medical complexity, children in foster care, transgender youth) in order to illustrate relevant ethical challenges faced by vulnerable populations. Introduces students to written media (eg. op-ed, letter to the editor) as a tool to advocate for vulnerable children.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Employs an inter-disciplinary approach to understand the nature of addiction, drawing on philosophy, psychological science, and the perspectives of people who struggle with addiction. Provides an overview of competing models of addiction and evaluates their theoretical foundations and supporting evidence. Explores the heterogeneity of individual-level decision-making in addiction. Distinguishes different ideas of responsibility and how they intersect with addiction research and individual and societal responses to addiction, including drug criminalization. Provides students with the opportunity for in-depth reflection on conceptual and ethical issues surrounding addiction, developing analytic and argumentative skills.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Explores how to make the world a better and more just place from the standpoint of human rights & justice theory. Topics include the distinctive role of justice and structural justice in moral thought, theoretical foundations for human rights, the relationship between human rights & justice, & the related concepts of fairness, power and disadvantage. Explores these topics in the particular context of the pandemic.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Provides a small, interactive setting for discussion of research ethics, ethics committees, and ethics concepts among the trainees and between trainees and affiliated faculty. Divides sessions among the following activities: reviewing and critiquing journal articles related to research ethics; trainees’ individual presentations on practicum research progress; guest speakers related to research ethics cases and/or concepts; and development and presentation of original case studies by each trainee. Includes topics standard of care, justice, inducements, research ethics committees, informed consent, and gender roles in research decisions.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Focuses on the moral and ethical dimensions of health and medicine, but because many bioethical debates revolve around what it means to be human, understanding race is relevant to bioethics. Examines the varied meanings and uses of race, as well as how bioethics has and has not engaged with these meanings and uses. Explores how contemporary bioethics can engage with bioethics more substantively with race and its implications, specifically racism and health inequities.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Examines global food systems and the policies that impact global food security, and broader aspects of sustainable development including public health, the environment and economies. Presents and critiques different food system policies that determine the availability, affordability, and nutritional quality of the food supply and influence the amount and combination of foods that people are willing and able to consume. Encourages use of critical thinking skills and debate to understand how policy and science interact with regard to food systems. Presents data, case studies and real-time challenges related to global food systems with an emphasis on the development of practical skills to analyze systems approaches.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Provides an introduction to the ethics of human subject research and allows participants to apply what they learn to case examples from the U.S. and international settings. Presents ethical principles and a framework for analysis. Reviews key U.S. and international regulations that guide the ethical conduct of research. Through lectures and moderated discussions, addresses a variety of issues including: informed consent for research participation; ethical aspects of study design; just selection of research subjects and duties of justice when working in resource poor settings; and the role and function of institutional review boards/ethics review committees. Uses case discussions to explore research in both domestic and international settings.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Explores the ethics of responding to large, structural, public health disasters, or ‘catastrophe ethics’. Investigates catastrophes with the following property: they are so large that no individual action or person can solve them; rather, they require coordination of large collectives. Focuses on climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic, and structural racism over the course of the week, asking two, overarching questions about each: what are we obligated to do in the face of such crises; and regardless of what we as a society do, what are we obligated to do in our private lives? Investigates the relationship between the structural and the individual answers.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Introduces and explores the equity and ethical issues of the nutritional sciences field in both policy and practice. Provides students with the opportunity to think critically about a variety of conflicting views of who is marginalized and hence, nutritionally vulnerable, what is considered a healthy diet, where are the inequities in accessing a nutritious diet, and what are the implications of policies in achieving nutrition security. Borrows tools from practical ethics, political philosophy, and theories of justice to shed light on these issues that determine our common future and the way we personally and socially relate to the food we eat.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Provides students with the basic research and organizational skills needed for successful completion of the MBE thesis. Addresses skills needed to conduct a literature review, choose an appropriate topic, and construct a rigorous argument.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Provides an opportunity for students to actively conduct research in bioethics.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Provides students with a one-on-one independent study experience in which they independently review papers from the current literature and meet weekly with a departmental faculty member to discuss them. Offers opportunities for complementary activities which may include participating in related course discussions, seminars, conferences, etc. Culminates with the completion of a written document, typically a substantial paper.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
The MBE Practicum is a mentored, bioethics experience, which involves either field work with a practicing bioethicist, or applying one's bioethical training to a real-world environment.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Introduces common ethical challenges in patient care that arise in different clinical settings, and the systems in place to address them. Explores the perspectives of patients, families, trainees and practicing clinicians on complex ethical dilemmas in clinical care. Presents different methods of analyzing ethical dilemmas in the care of patients, and different styles of communicating about them with patients.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.
Builds on the foundation offered in Clinical Practicum. Pairs students with faculty and affiliated mentors who have clinical ethics supervisory responsibility in their respective institutions. Exposes students to real-time ethical dilemmas and how they are addressed and resolved with an emphasis on the development of practical skills.
Course location and modality is found on the JHSPH website.