Health care professionals, patients, families, and health care organizations regularly encounter complex ethical questions in clinical care, research, education, and organizational decision-making. Health ethics provides structured approaches for identifying, analyzing, and addressing these questions through interdisciplinary collaboration, ethical deliberation, education, and scholarship.
The University of Missouri Center for Health Ethics advances ethical decision-making across the University of Missouri and throughout Missouri by supporting clinical ethics consultation, health ethics education, research, and organizational ethics. Working collaboratively with patients, families, health care professionals, learners, researchers, and community partners, the Center promotes thoughtful, patient-centered approaches to ethically complex situations in health care.
Our Mission
To improve the well-being of Missourians by advancing ethics and professionalism in patient care, education, research, and health care organizations through clinical ethics consultation, education, scholarship, and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Our Goals
- Advance clinical ethics consultation by providing leadership for the University of Missouri Health Care Clinical Ethics Committee and Clinical Ethics Consultation Service and supporting ethically informed patient care throughout Missouri.
- Promote health ethics education by developing educational programs for students, faculty, health care professionals, and community members that strengthen ethical reasoning and professionalism.
- Support ethical health care organizations by encouraging ethical leadership, organizational ethics, and systematic approaches to ethical decision-making within health care systems.
- Foster interdisciplinary collaboration among clinicians, educators, researchers, and health care leaders to address emerging ethical issues in medicine and health care.
- Advance scholarship in health ethics by supporting research that explores ethical questions related to clinical care, health care delivery, research, emerging technologies, vulnerable populations, and public health.
Clinical Ethics Committee and Clinical Ethics Consultation Services
Patients, families, surrogate decision-makers, and health care professionals may face situations involving complex ethical questions during the course of medical care. These situations often involve medical, nursing, legal, psychological, cultural, religious, and social considerations that can create uncertainty or disagreement.
The University of Missouri Health Care Clinical Ethics Committee and Clinical Ethics Consultation Service provide ethics consultation to assist patients, families, and members of the health care team in identifying and considering the ethical dimensions of difficult clinical situations. Ethics consultants facilitate communication, clarify ethical considerations, support collaborative decision-making, and help ensure that patient values, professional responsibilities, and organizational policies are thoughtfully considered.
Clinical ethics consultation is available to support ethically complex situations involving patient care across University of Missouri Health Care.
Areas of Expertise
The Mizzou Center for Health Ethics provides expertise in a broad range of topics related to clinical care, health care organizations, education, research, and professionalism. Faculty and collaborators contribute through clinical ethics consultation, education, scholarship, policy development, and interdisciplinary collaboration in areas including:
- Clinical ethics consultation
- Clinical ethics committees
- Ethical decision-making in health care
- Patient-centered care
- Shared decision-making
- Surrogate decision-making
- Decision-making capacity
- Informed consent
- Professionalism in health care
- Organizational ethics
- Moral distress and ethical challenges in health care
- End-of-life ethics
- Ethics education for health professions
- Bioethics and health ethics scholarship
- Research ethics
- Health policy and ethics
- Artificial intelligence and emerging technologies in health care
- Interdisciplinary ethics education
- Ethics in quality improvement and health system innovation
The Center's expertise supports patients, families, health care professionals, students, researchers, health care organizations, and community partners through consultation, education, scholarship, and collaborative initiatives that promote ethical practice across the continuum of health care.
Graduate Certificate in Health Ethics
The Department of Biomedical Informatics, Biostatistics and Medical Epidemiology (BBME), in partnership with the Mizzou Center for Health Ethics, offers a fully online Graduate Certificate in Health Ethics.
Designed for working professionals, this 12-credit-hour graduate certificate examines ethical issues encountered throughout contemporary health care. Coursework explores topics including clinical ethics, informed consent, decision-making capacity, surrogate decision-making, professionalism, patient confidentiality, end-of-life care, organizational ethics, and health care policy.
The program prepares clinicians, administrators, educators, and other health care professionals to recognize, analyze, and address ethical challenges encountered in health care practice, leadership, and research. More information about this 12-credit-hour graduate certificate is available at the University of Missouri Graduate Certificate in Health Ethics.
