The Department of Bioethics & Humanities is an independent unit in the UW School of Medicine, based in the Health Sciences complex. Our 11 interdisciplinary core faculty—drawn from medicine, the social sciences, and the humanities—work across the School’s two major domains: biomedical research and clinical care and operations, providing ethics support across the translational pipeline—from bench discovery and preclinical models to clinical trials, bedside care, and system-level policy.
With an annual budget of approximately $2 million, we partner across UW and Seattle Children’s and maintain a thriving adjunct and affiliate program with 38 members.
Research: We conduct empirical bioethics and humanities scholarship on health equity and justice; genomics and other emerging biotechnologies; clinical, organizational, and research ethics; and policy. Our work is collaborative, problem-driven, and closely connected to laboratory, clinical, and community settings at the University of Washington.
Education: We offer a Master of Arts in Bioethics and an Undergraduate Minor in Bioethics & Humanities, along with curricula in clinical ethics and professionalism for medical students, residents, and fellows, and continuing education for practicing clinicians and healthcare professionals through two main programs: Advanced Training in Healthcare Ethics and Summer Seminar in Healthcare Ethics.
Service to UW Medicine: We provide ethics expertise through the Clinical Ethics Consultation Service, faculty and trainee education, and contributions to ethics committees and policy development—supporting high-quality, patient-centered care and responsible research and innovation across UW Medicine.
Highly collaborative, the department brings rigorous scholarship together with practical service—advancing ethical reflection and action where science, medicine, and society meet. Given the department’s breadth, the administrator must be agile, partnering with the Chair to lead supervision, counsel, service, and strategic planning across all operations.