The Importance of Ethics Education

Bioethics for Bioengineers is motivated by the potential for ethically-minded bioengineers to address healthcare disparities and social justice issues in their work as industry leaders, entrepreneurs, allied health professionals, and research scientists. By educating future medical innovators on global bioethics, public health, disability studies, healthcare resource allocation, gene-editing technologies, and more, this project has the potential to create leaders who develop accessible technology, conduct ethical research, and understand the importance of effective science communication.  

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The technically rigorous curriculum and heavy course load associated with the bioengineering programs at the University of Washington prevent many students from engaging with courses that challenge them to consider the broader societal impact of their work. However, bioengineering students are likely to face ethical issues throughout their professional careers. 

 

Preliminary survey data indicates that less than 5% of University of Washington bioengineering undergraduates have taken a class related to bioethics, and, on average, they ranked their familiarity with bioethics topics at a 2.6 on a 1-5 scale (1=less familiar, 5=more familiar). Despite their lack of experience with bioethics, students were overwhelmingly positive about wanting to learn more. Our findings show that 93% of students indicated an interest in global bioethics, 78% indicated an interest in public health ethics, and 74% indicated an interest in healthcare resource allocation. Given this data, there is a need to prepare ethically-minded medical innovators and educate an enthusiastic student population about topics of interest to their future careers in engineering and medicine.