Master of Science in Bioethics

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Advances in medical technology have created amazing improvements in health outcomes—but they have also opened the door to increasingly complex ethical questions. What’s the most compassionate way to approach end-of-life care? How can insurers and social programs increase access to care, and when do they go awry? When is it acceptable to manipulate a person’s genes? Finding a satisfying solution to these perplexing questions takes specialized skills.

Harvard Medical School’s Master of Science in Bioethics provides students with rigorous academic grounding in bioethical issues related to clinical practice and research, as well as health law and policy. Students can customize the program to their specific interests by selecting from a wide range of elective courses.

The program culminates in a mentored capstone experience involving a project that addresses a bioethics question. Our students enroll from diverse educational and professional backgrounds; many already hold a terminal or professional degree in medicine, law, social work, chaplaincy, journalism, and other fields. The common factor is a commitment to wrestling with issues of fairness, equity, and justice in health care and medical research.

Most courses are taught at Harvard Medical School, which draws faculty from more than a dozen Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals and institutions united by their passion for the subject matter, faculty and students.