Self-Directed Bioethics Education

I originally enrolled in the philosophy Ph.D. program at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York without knowing that I wanted to do bioethics. I did not select the program based on the possibility of doing bioethics, but I found it a plus that the program offered such an opportunity. I was fairly sure I wanted to do ethics. I enrolled because I wanted to become a philosophy professor.

After taking the only course offered at the time in bioethics,¹ I realized I wanted to do bioethics. What an interesting discipline—one that perfectly merged my science and humanities backgrounds! I knew this discipline was the perfect match for me. At that point, however, I simply had to wait. At that stage in my doctoral education there were no other possibilities for bioethics education or experience. I had to put a lid on my enthusiasm and eagerness to study bioethics and complete more straight ethics education before I could do anything further. After completing more ethics education, I became an Ethics Fellow at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine. This fellowship was available by way of my philosophy program. As an Ethics Fellow, I teach bioethics to medical students.

The next voyage in my career was a stint as a Visiting Scholar at The Hastings Center. This was a wonderful opportunity that allowed me to accomplish a great deal of research in a small amount of time. Furthermore, it gave me an insight into a very specific career track for bioethicists: research associate at The Hastings Center. I was able to draw upon my philosophy program mentors as well as my superior at Mt. Sinai for guidance in this opportunity. Clearly, the aspect of the program that has most helped me become a bioethicist and build a career is the mentoring and advice of helpful faculty members.

Programs like the one at the Graduate Center, which require one to be self-directed when seeking to enter the field of bioethics, foster the creation of independent, committed self-starters. If programs like the one at the Graduate Center abound, then the field of bioethics will remain populated by those who come from various backgrounds and forge a unique path to bioethics.

It strikes me that if there were more jobs in the field of bioethics, then the education or training and career path might become somewhat more uniform. Rather than reform bioethics education as a first step, a more pressing need is to create or identify more bioethics jobs. As more jobs become available and the task of filling bioethics positions becomes more pressing, bioethics education will grow and change to meet this need.

Currently, there are a variety of different types of jobs available to bioethicists. It would be quite handy if there were a publication similar to Jobs for Philosophers to list any and all jobs that could be filled by a bioethicist. In "Jobs for Bioethicists" one might find employment that is clinically oriented, involves academic teaching, is corpo- ratebased, or is a mixture of these. Granted, some jobs will be best suited to lawyer-bioethicists, or physician- bioethicists, or some additional specification. However, it would be tremendously helpful for budding bioethicists if such a publication existed; growth in the field might also be fostered by bringing more attention to the discipline. While bioethics jobs are currently listed on certain websites and in a handful of publications, the utility of a well-known publication devoted to listing jobs for bioethicists would be significant.

My experiences began with an introductory course in the Graduate Center's philosophy program and broadened to include a fellowship in bioethics at a prestigious medical school, a stint as a Visiting Scholar at the Hastings Center, and an opportunity to present a paper at Oxford University. These and other experiences have served as important learning adventures. While they are not particular to the Graduate Center's philosophy program, the program...