A person who works in the field of bioethics is known as a bioethicist. This type of career training can be varied, but it typically includes some medical/scientific background combined with ethics studies. A bioethicist typically has graduate work in law, theology, or philosophy in addition to these studies. Bioethicists can work in a variety of settings with this education.
Essentially, these professionals are trained to assist others in advising or suggesting courses of action in medicine and medical research that are ethically sound. Depending on the moral system from which medical ethics emerges, the way ethics is determined may be interpreted differently. When faced with a moral dilemma, a Catholic hospital, for example, might seek advice from a Catholic bioethicist. This person would examine the problem through the lens of Catholic ethics, ultimately recommending a course of action, or a number of options, for the hospital to consider.
A bioethicist can do a lot more than give advice to hospitals or the occasional patient who has an ethical dilemma. Many of these medical ethics experts work independently of any organization and may be called upon to provide advice on specific issues. Those planning human research trials, hospitals, medical clinics, laboratories, and other businesses may request consultations. Some bioethicists work with or consult with think tanks that help shape government policy. Understanding the range of ethical interpretations is critical at this level, especially when advising countries with large and diverse populations.
A bioethicist’s work may also take place in university settings. Instead of people piecing together a career through multidisciplinary studies, more schools are offering bioethics programs. Creating programs where bioethics is emphasized, which often requires a doctoral degree, necessitates the hiring of professors to teach those classes. While there may be a few people who specialize in bioethics in philosophy, medicine, or other departments, having a large department and major in this area necessitates a larger pool of specialists from which to learn this discipline.
Some people may still be unsure about what a bioethicist can do. As previously stated, they typically advise, teach, assist in policy development, research protocol development, and answer or suggest solutions to ethical dilemmas. This last point is frequently misunderstood, because what exactly is an ethical dilemma in medicine? There are a lot of them, and some people may be very familiar with them. The following are a few topics in which bioethics might be interested:
1) When does one’s life start?
2) To what extent does treatment for a specific purpose affect one’s quality of life?
3) Is a treatment/experiment life-affirming and poses little risk to the people who are undergoing it?
4) When should treatment be discontinued?
5) How much research on humans is permissible, and what level of development constitutes a human (stem cell research)?
6) Should research findings be discarded because of abusive treatment of humans?
Depending on one’s moral, theological, and even political leanings, there could be a variety of answers to these questions. Bioethicists do not always agree on these major issues, but their arguments are based on research into ethical systems. This helps them rationalize the things they recommend, but it doesn’t always result in single answers that everyone in medicine/ethics can agree on.