Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics

05/15/2025

[Harvard–CUHK Joint International Symposium]
🌏Global Bioethics: Engaging Asian and Western Perspectives

Join us for a dynamic dialogue 💬as voices from Asia and the West 🤝come together to address today’s pressing global challenges in bioethics:
• Pluralism and cross-cultural bioethics decision-making
• Bioethics at cultural and religious frontiers
• Navigating AI, big data, and the future of care

Ready to help shape the future of global bioethics?
🔗 Learn more & register today!
https://bioethics.med.cuhk.edu.hk/harvard-cuhk-joint-international-symposium/

07/03/2024

07/03/2024

Here are some highlights from this year's Harvard Ethics Consultation Skills Course! Thank you again to all our faculty, staff, participants, and guest speaker Keisha Ray, PhD, for making this a fantastic course. This was our largest group yet, with 121 participants from 16 different countries, 19 different states, and 53 different institutions.

07/02/2024

Applications are open for our new Online Fellowship Certificate Program! Apply here: https://bit.ly/HMSCfB-CertificateApp2024

Participants in the program will engage in a wide-ranging exploration of , beginning with its historical foundations and theoretical frameworks, gaining familiarity with theories of , rights-based and communitarian perspectives, , , and virtue . The program includes feminist approaches, a discussion of meta-ethics, and the role of ethics committees in case consultation. Key topics in clinical ethics, ethics and public health ethics include, for example, research oversight in the developing world, rationing, reproductive ethics, end-of-life care, organ allocation, and medical aid in dying. Specialized topics such as , artificial intelligence ( ), and are also covered. Additionally, the program addresses critical issues like racism, ableism, research scandals, and compassionate use of investigational medicinal products.

05/23/2024

Harvard kicked off its affinity graduation celebrations with its second annual celebration of graduates with disabilities in a Monday morning ceremony at the Student Organization Center at Hilles.

05/13/2024

We are launching a new, part-time, synchronous academic program to be conducted entirely . Designed for those with a serious interest in , the program is structured to further participants' knowledge in the history, philosophical and social science underpinnings, and contemporary practice of bioethics. Participants will be exposed to major ethical theories and modes of bioethical analysis, while addressing a wide variety of topics in research ethics, clinical ethics, and public health ethics. Sessions will be led by Dr. Thos Cochrane, and other distinguished faculty from across Harvard University and other leading institutions. Applications open on July 1, 2024! Learn more:

Applications will open July 1, 2024, and close September 15, 2024.The Harvard Medical School (HMS) Online Certificate in Bioethics is a part-time, synchronous academic certificate program, conducted remotely with an optional opportunity for a two-day in-person experience in Boston.* Designed for tho...

04/17/2024

Deadline alert! ⚡️ Submissions are due by 5pm ET on April 22nd. All Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Dental Medicine students are eligible. Visit our site for details: https://bit.ly/HMS-Beecher24

04/05/2024

Join us for "Endless, Excessive, and Inhumane: Solitary Confinement in U.S. Immigration Detention" symposium co-hosted by the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics, the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics, and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.

📅 Date & Time: April 12, 2024, 1:00-5:00 pm
📍 Location: Guttman Conference Center at Harvard Graduate School of Education

Legal scholars, immigrant rights advocates, and health professionals have been calling for the end of solitary confinement in immigration detention for more than a decade. But the use of this inhumane treatment has only increased. In a recently published report, researchers from Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School, and Physicians for Human Rights exposed the expansion of this practice in U.S. immigration detention through evaluation of litigated FOIA data and interviews with formerly detained immigrants who experienced solitary confinement. Between 2018-2023, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) used solitary confinement more than 14,000 times, with placements lasting an average of 27 days. Survivors described this experience as one that causes “your mind and body [to] break into little pieces.”

Join the report authors and local immigrant rights experts and advocates for this half-day symposium featuring talks about the report findings, efforts currently underway to reduce and ultimately eliminate solitary confinement in immigration detention, and the importance of conducting interdisciplinary research that informs real-time public policy. https://bit.ly/3vCiShk

03/04/2024

The Annual Beecher Prize in Medical Ethics continues Dr. Henry K. Beecher's legacy of critical ethical analysis of contemporary medical issues by awarding a prize of $1,500 to a Harvard Medical School or Harvard School of Dental Medicine student for the best scholarly on any topic in and . Honorable mentions will be awarded $500 prizes. Entries must be emailed by 5 p.m. ET on April 22, 2024 with subject line "Attn: Beecher Prize Committee" to [email protected]. Learn more: https://bit.ly/HMS-Beecher24