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WFU creates master's program in bioethics
Advances in science led to niche, officials say
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Published: August 21, 2008
The study and application of bioethics is not just for health care anymore.
Increasingly, there are public-policy, religious and social components to consider with medical issues, such as human cloning, euthanasia, genetic testing for deadly diseases and living wills.
In response to what health-care analysts call a "looming bioethics crisis," Wake Forest University is creating a master's degree in bioethics that will begin classes in August 2009.
Nathan Hatch, the president of the university, said that the board of trustees agreed to create the master's program because "in an age when genetic engineering of the human person is a distinct possibility, the challenges our society faces in bioethics have never been more pressing."
A recent example of how bioethical issues have crossed into mainstream America was Congress' passage of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act in April. The act bars health-insurance companies from using genetic information to set premiums or determine enrollment eligibility. Employers also are prohibited from using genetic information in hiring, firing or promotion decisions.
The first bioethics class at Wake Forest will have up to 15 students. The primary focus will be on bioethics in social context, such as health disparities and access to care, and bioethics and biotechnology, such as medical advances in organ transplants and genetic engineering.
"Wake Forest is perfectly suited to filling this need, with our unique combination of strengths in life sciences, the professions and the humanities," said Mark Hall, a co-director of the bioethics program. He also is a law professor and a professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Health Policy at the School of Medicine.
The master's in bioethics program will appeal to legal, medical, religious and social-services professionals wanting "to add a layer of expertise" to their education, said Nancy King, a co-director of the program and a professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Health Policy.
There are about 18 American universities offering a master's degree in bioethics, health-care ethics or medical ethics, but just one in the Southeast. That program is at the University of South Florida.
Still, the chairman of bioethics at the U.S. National Institutes of Health warned recently that "trained bioethics researchers and bioethicists are in short supply."
Some of the bioethics master's degrees are offered through divinity schools or exclusively online, King said.
"This is an eclectic area of study, and a moving target. This attests to the diversity in bioethics," she said.
The Bioethics Institute at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles has about 40 students from backgrounds as varied as transplant surgeons, emergency responders, chaplains, lawyers, hospital administrators, and high-school and philosophy teachers, said James Walter, the chairman of the institute.
Walter said he served as a consultant to Wake Forest for its bioethics program.
"Until recently, we encouraged our bioethics students to keep their day-time jobs because it was difficult to find full-time work unless they could take this expertise and transition into another career," Walter said. "But you are seeing more hospitals and health-care systems hiring masters of bioethics graduates to be their bioethicist because there are so few doctorate graduates in bioethics out there."
The Wake Forest program is looking for people to fill two new senior-faculty positions -- a chairman or chairwoman for biomedical ethics in the Department of Internal Medicine at the medical school, and a distinguished faculty member for bioethics in the College of Arts and Sciences.
The university already has hired Brad Tharpe as associate director for the bioethics program. A graduate of Wake Forest's first master of divinity class, he recently served as director of spiritual life and chaplain at DePauw University in Indiana.
A full-time student in the master's program is expected to earn a bioethics degree in three semesters. Part-time students may take up to six years.
For more information, visit www.wfu.edu/bioethics.
■ Richard Craver can be reached at 727-7376 or at rcraver@wsjournal.com.
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