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The department also teaches the ethics curriculum for University of Washington Medical Students, offers a scholarship opportunity for students of the social, ethical, and policy implications of health research and/or healthcare, and hosts an Interprofessional Ethics Lab.

Wylie Burke Endowed Scholarship

The Wylie Burke Endowed Scholarship supports UW undergraduate or graduate students studying the social, ethical, and policy implications of health research and/or healthcare. The $1,000 one-year scholarship is available to cover the costs of tuition, books, fees, travel to professional meetings, and other educational expenses. This opportunity is open to all eligible persons regardless of race, sex or other identity. Scholarship applications for the 2025-2026 academic year will be available by mid-May 2025.

Link to more information.

UW School of Medicine Ethics Theme Curriculum

Director: Gina Campelia, PhD HEC-C
Co-Directors: Maya Scott, MSW, LICSW and Jay Brahmbhatt, MD MA

The Ethics Theme is a 4-year curriculum that is woven throughout the UW School of Medicine, including over 15 sessions with the medical students across the WWAMI region. Ethics sessions take place independently in basic science blocks or clerkships, where ethical principles are applied to cases and topics relevant to the block or clerkship. In addition, the ethics theme is taught in a collaborative set of courses called Medicine Health and Society (previously Themes in Medicine, or Ecology of Health and Medicine), where ethics is taught in coordination with other themes, such as Health Systems Science and Health Equity. Ethics sessions are typically case-based and rely on small-group discussion. Topics covered over the course of the curriculum include critical thinking, foundations of justice, decision making capacity, moral distress, pediatric ethics, relational ethics, narrative ethics, shared decision making, research ethics, and more. You can find out more about the UWSOM Curriculum here.

Bodemer Interprofessional Ethics Lab

The Charles W. Bodemer Lectureship honors groundbreaking labors in the development of biomedical sciences, medical history, and ethics at the University of Washington. Dr. Bodemer was an Associate Dean of the UW School of Medicine and founded the Department of Biomedical History in 1967.

In 2018, the Bodemer Interprofessional Ethics Lab was established in collaboration with the UW Center for Health Sciences Interprofessional Education, Research & Practice. These events are held up to three times per year, and feature evening seminars of current ethical issues in healthcare and science with small group breakout discussions. For more information, see “Clinical Bioethics Labs” in the IPE Core Curriculum.

Graduate Courses

B H B H 536 Research Ethics and Regulation

Explores the ethical foundations, principles and concepts, and U.S. laws related to the conduct of research with human subjects. Required for...

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Graduate Courses

Undergrad Courses