Program Overview

Residency Ethics Program

The Residency Ethics Program is an 18-month track that provides residents and fellows at the School of Medicine with foundational knowledge and skills to prepare for in-depth contributions to health care system ethics committees and ethics consultation services, and to utilize ethical thinking in clinical care, teaching, and scholarship.

Learning Objectives

1. To acquire basic knowledge about ethical theories as a basis for action
2. To identify ethical issues in clinical care and develop initial skills for addressing them, including experience with ethics infrastructure in health care systems
3. To utilize ethics analytical skills to address an issue in your clinical specialty/department

Outcome

Upon completion of the track, residents will be awarded a certificate of distinction in ethics from the School of Medicine.

Components

Core Curriculum

• Ethics course: participation in and engaged learning curriculum with six two-hour, monthly sessions over the fall and early winter
• Healthcare Ethics Conference: two-day Emory Healthcare Ethics conference in spring, with interdisciplinary participants throughout the Southeast
• Small-group implementation sessions: periodic, hour-long, small-group check-in sessions, post the spring conference

Experiential Learning

• Committee membership: participate in one of the Emory Healthcare or affiliated ethics committees

Teaching Experience

• Participate in one or more teaching opportunities, such as ethics sessions for medical students in the participant's specialty, ethics selective during medical school capstone, or conference poster session

Capstone Project

• Prepare an ethics project for implementation in a clinical site, IRB-reviewed clinical ethics research project, educational or quality-improvement project
• Poster presentation of project/research at Emory Healthcare Ethics Conference subsequent year, possible poster presentation at professional specialty conference

Mentorship

• Faculty mentors from the Ethics Center and the participant's department