International Bioethics
Building on Michigan State University’s mission to encourage global engagement, the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences (CEHLS) supports a robust and inclusive international bioethics. Our international efforts have variably involved bioethics linkages of different sorts to nearly all the continents. Examples of such efforts include international research ethics, and ongoing bioethics study abroad opportunities.
We recognize and contribute to the vital role of bioethics in the area of global research ethics. With the generous support of the U.S. National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Center we are actively engaged in a four-year international bioethics training program dedicated to enhancing bioethics capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa. Building on a partnership with the University of Malawi College of Medicine our four-year training grant has two primary goals. The partnership’s first goal is the development of an indigenous community of bioethics scholars in Malawi and contiguous regions, who will become active contributors to the literature of international research ethics, speaking to those issues that are of particular relevance for Africa. Our second goal is the development of an indigenous curriculum relevant to research ethics that will attract talented African students to an academic career in bioethics. With this partnership we aim to also encourage a mutually beneficial dialogue on bioethics between US and African scholars that will become the basis of future international research and teaching collaborations.
Additionally, CEHLS makes available various bioethics study abroad opportunities.
For over 25 years CEHLS faculty have offered the very popular London-based
Medical Ethics and History of Health Care six-week summer course that
provides an historical and ethical comparative analysis of the US and the
UK health care systems. More recently, CEHLS offers Latin American programs
that take a similar cross-cultural comparative approach, and which are taught
on-site in Costa Rica. The Costa Rican programs challenge students to consider
how an economically resource-poor country has developed an effective and equitable,
governmentally controlled health delivery system. Costa Rican study abroad
options include an eight-week Ethics
and History of Development and Health Care summer program offered through
MSU’s Department of Philosophy, and a one-week medical student spring
break experience Broadening
Perspectives on Health Care in Costa Rica made possible with the collaborative
support of the International Health Central
America Institute foundation (IHCAI).
Questions or comments? Please contact Tom Tomlinson.
