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Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities

Northwestern Clinical Bioethics Scholars Program

The Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities offers a two-year scholars program that provides advanced training in the theory of bioethics and its application to clinical medicine.

The program includes the following curricular components:

  • Attend 10 Core Didactics/Workshops
  • Attend 12 Specialty Didactics/Workshops
  • Complete Asynchronous Learning
  • Develop a Scholarly Project
  • Develop a Portfolio of Scholarly Activities

The curriculum provides a broad understanding of clinical bioethics across the following six subcompetencies:

  • Patient care
  • Medical knowledge
  • Practice based learning and improvement
  • System based practice
  • Interpersonal skills and communications
  • Professionalism

Program Objectives:

  • Understand the moral, philosophical, and historical basis of bioethics
  • Understand the basic principles of bioethics
  • Identify ethical features of a clinical encounter and develop critical skills necessary to evaluate ethical claims
  • Address ethical challenges and conflicts through defending a particular position on an ethical issue
  • Develop awareness of ethical issues that may occur across subspecialties
  • Develop scholarly products that allow the learner to increase their understanding of the ethical challenges in their own subspecialty

Please note: We are not planning any remote options for in-person programming.

Eligibility

All local healthcare professionals and staff are eligible to apply. Additionally, faculty from non-healthcare fields (at Northwestern University and other local academic institutions) are eligible to apply if the area of bioethics can be applied to their primary area of study (e.g., medical anthropology, environmental/health issues, health journalism).

Tuition

All physicians and all individuals not affiliated with Northwestern Medicine will be charged $2,000 total for the program. Non-physicians (nurses, researchers, staff, etc.) affiliated with Northwestern Medicine, Lurie Children's, or ShirleyRyan hospitals/clinics will be charged a reduced total cost of $1,000.

Apply to Join


Applications to join in Fall 2024 are now closed. Please check back in June 2025 to apply for our next cohort.

McGaw residents and fellows, please apply instead to the McGaw Bioethics Clinical Scholars Program.

Important Dates (2024)

  • Information session: June 26 at 6pm, held via Zoom (Recording available here)
  • Applications open: June 26
  • Applications close: August 9
  • Decisions communicated: August 19
  • Orientation: Thursday, August 29, 6-7pm (will be recorded)
  • First seminar session: Wednesday, September 11, 6-8pm, in person on downtown campus

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