Medical Ethics and Health Policy
Department of Medical Ethics / About the Department
About the Department
Who We Are
The Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy is based in the Perelman School of Medicine. Currently Zeke Emanuel, MD, PhD serves as Chair of the department. The department is home to a distinguished faculty that produces and disseminates first-rate scholarship, conducts one of the leading bioethics Master’s programs in the world, and participates in a widely praised four-year curriculum on ethics and professionalism in the Perelman School of Medicine. Members of the department supervise research projects being conducted by undergraduates, masters students, medical students and PhD students. They also serve on various University committees such as the Institutional Review Boards and hospital ethics committees.
The Center for Bioethics is a leader in bioethics research and its deployment in the ethical, efficient, and compassionate practice of the life sciences and medicine. Interdisciplinary research in bioethics at Penn is located in the Center. Under the leadership of its founding director, Arthur L. Caplan, Ph.D., the Center has become a world-renowned educational and research enterprise that has appointed over 20 full and part-time faculty (Senior Fellows and Associates) with appointments in a number of University of Pennsylvania schools and departments including medicine, law, nursing, business, education, philosophy, psychology, sociology, religious studies and public policy. The Center is the home to many interdisciplinary research projects, including vaccine ethics, mental health ethics, pediatric biobanking and high school bioethics.