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About the Medical College of Wisconsin Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities

The Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities at the Medical College of Wisconsin, established in 1982 as one of the first centers of its kind in the nation, was created to nurture a multidisciplinary approach to the complex challenges facing health care professionals, patients, and policy makers.

Physicians on StairsInitially, much of the Center's work focused on helping physicians and health care institutions analyze and resolve difficult ethical issues that arise at the bedside in individual patient cases. While a significant portion of our efforts continue to address this need, the Center's work has grown to include conceptual and empirical research on key bioethics issues of regional, national, and international importance; education of the next generation of bioethicists through the Center's graduate programs; the ethics training of medical students, residents and fellows at the Medical College of Wisconsin and its affiliated institutions; and consultation and outreach to civic, health care, and professional organizations and policy makers throughout the United States.

The demand for, and appreciation of, each of these components have expanded greatly over the years. Health care professionals, students, academicians, business people, community and spiritual leaders, policy makers, researchers, and others increasingly acknowledge that the wide scope and critical importance of pressing bioethics and medical humanities questions demand careful thought and analysis. The Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities is positioned well to help all of us face the challenges that lie ahead.

To learn more about Bioethics Graduate Programs at the Medical College of Wisconsin, visit the Graduate School website.

Our Mission

The Medical College of Wisconsin's Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities is dedicated to locally, nationally, and internationally recognized innovation and excellence in:

Bioethics and Medical Humanities Education

Educating health care professionals, researchers, academicians, policy makers, business and community leaders, and students in bioethics

Bioethics Research and Scholarship

Advancing knowledge in bioethics and related disciplines through research and publication

Bioethics Consultation

Assisting ethics consultants and ethics committees to facilitate the resolution of ethical dilemmas that arise in individual patient cases; and assisting private and governmental health policy organizations in the analysis of bioethics issues

Bioethics and Medical Humanities Community Service

Fostering greater understanding of bioethics issues locally, regionally, nationally and internationally through conferences, programs, and the development and dissemination of resource materials