Modern health care has an increasingly moral dimension encompassing not only patient welfare but also the functioning of health care organizations and the role of research in society. The field of health care ethics has evolved as a crucial component in clinical and organizational contexts as well as in academic medicine in the realms of education, training and research.
The MU Center for Health Ethics seeks to address difficult moral issues through dialogue across multiple related disciplines and in the broader academic and public community.
Our Mission
To improve the well-being of Missourians through the development of patient-centered programs related to ethics and professionalism in education, research, service, and organizational performance.
Goals
- Promote patient centered health care by providing leadership for a clinical ethics initiatives including a hospital based clinical ethics committee and consult service that will devise ways to provide services locally, regionally, and statewide.
- Establish and promote initiatives in health ethics and professionalism through education and training by engaging faculty, students, patients, private health care professionals, and the public.
- Develop innovative programs to enhance relationships between patients and health care professionals within health care systems.
- Promote ethical behavior of organizations by encouraging principles of organizational ethics and systemic processes for discerning and applying ethical principles and values in decision-making.
- Collaborate with faculty and other key individuals in developing research initiatives that will address the ethical concerns of end-of-life care, health care access, treatment of vulnerable populations, genomics, health management, and informatics.
