Addressing right and wrong
Members of the Biomedical Ethics Research Program conduct rigorous research, teach ethics courses, and engage in policy discussions about ethical questions to help ensure that biomedical science and health care are conducted with human decency and fairness. Our program also offers a robust selection of education and training opportunities.
Overview
The Biomedical Ethics Research Program at Mayo Clinic assesses and addresses difficult questions about right and wrong in medicine and biomedical science.
Our faculty members conduct rigorous research, teach courses on biomedical ethics, and engage in policy discussions about ethical questions.
As scientific discoveries are made and health care evolves, the values at stake in biomedical science and health care are contested and debated.
The solutions to these debates are rarely straightforward; they involve complex trade-offs for scientists, clinicians and health care organizations. How such questions are answered strikes at the heart of what it means to conduct biomedical science and deliver health care with human decency and fairness.
The Biomedical Ethics Research Program provides institutional and national leadership on ethical issues raised by translational research and the integration of new medical technologies into patient care.
Our program, which was established in 2013, welcomes collaborations with investigators both inside and outside of Mayo Clinic who want to study the ethical implications of their research.
Directors
The Biomedical Ethics Research Program has two co-directors:
Richard R. Sharp, Ph.D., is the Lloyd A. and Barbara A. Amundson Professor of Biomedical Ethics and a consultant in the departments of Quantitative Health Sciences, Internal Medicine and Clinical Genomics. Read more about Dr. Sharp.
Michelle McGowan, Ph.D., an empirical bioethicist, is a professor of biomedical ethics and a senior associate consultant in the Department of Quantitative Health Sciences. Read more about Dr. McGowan.
Affiliations
The Biomedical Ethics Research Program is based at Mayo Clinic's campus in Rochester, Minnesota.
The program is affiliated with several other Mayo Clinic research areas that are focused on making fair, ethical and humane choices in biomedical research and clinical practice: