Oct 18, 2011 By: yunews
Einstein-Cardozo Master of Science in Bioethics Provides Critical Thinking to Improve Healthcare
Your patient has been diagnosed with breast cancer but her family requests that you tell her she has a rare blood disease; they worry that she will not be able to cope psychologically with a cancer diagnosis. The patient, however, is fully lucid and functional. What, as a physician, should you do? Where does your responsibility lie?
You have been tasked with managing a government-subsidized healthcare program with a strictly limited budget. There is a patient who requires an expensive, but effective chemotherapy treatment. With thousands of other patients who need care, do you approve the treatment? How do you decide?
Dilemmas and questions like these confront medical professionals, lawyers and policymakers, every day. The academic discipline dedicated to tackling these complex, multidimensional issues is known as bioethics. The dynamic field brings together the fields of medicine and law, while promoting and teaching ethical awareness, sensitivity to narrative, and critical reasoning to provide guidance on challenging healthcare decisions.
In 1978, internationally renowned bioethics expert and attorney , established one of the country鈥檚 first bioethics consultation services at , the University Hospital for . Such services allow a patient, family member, or any member of the healthcare team to request help in assessing the ethical aspects of medical decision making. Trained consultants help build consensus among all concerned toward an ethically, legally and clinically acceptable plan.
In 1995, in response to the growing demand for professionals trained in bioethics, Ms. Dubler created the, a year-long, interdisciplinary program that has provided hundreds of professionals with rigorous instruction and hands-on experience in bioethics. Now, in partnership with the , Einstein has developed a full-fledged that builds on the tested foundation of the certificate program. Einstein and Cardozo are the medical and law schools affiliated with 黑料社 All.
