The Bioethics program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS) originated in 1980 and grew out of the work of a small faculty Committee on Medical Ethics chaired by James J. Strain, MD, an Ethics Committee chaired by Kurt Hirschhorn, MD, and in 1981 a Faculty Seminar on the History and Philosophy of Medicine organized by Daniel A. Moros, MD.
Over the years, we have created a comprehensive bioethics program that serves the medical school, the Mount Sinai Health System and the Mount Sinai community. It includes ethics education for our medical students, house staff, and nurses, and a variety of courses and activities for teaching bioethics to MD and PhD and students in our several Masters Degree programs. It also establishes an institutionalized relationship between Icahn and an international academic community. In addition, members of the Bioethics Program provide clinical and research ethics consultation, participate in research, and conduct scholarship. Learn more about our recent scholarship
Bioethics at ISMMS has grown to include the Master of Science in Bioethics degree, as well as a curriculum for teaching bioethics to MD and PhD students, house staff, and students in our master's degree programs, which involve institutional relationships between ISMMS and Clarkson University and The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. In addition, we partner in an annual international academic consortium on bioethics with the bioethics programs at Oxford University, King's College of London, the Free University of Amsterdam, and Bar Ilan University in Israel.
Within the ISMMS medical education program, ethics lectures and discussions on the ethical and legal aspects of medicine are part of the two-year course, The Art and Science of Medicine. Ethics sessions are also incorporated into the medical students’ clinical clerkships. Through these elements of the curriculum, students learn that talking about ethical issues is not only permissible, but encouraged.