A University institute combining health and law disciplines is being reconfigured into the new Institute for Bioethics.
Located in Scaife Hall, the Institute for Bioethics will carry on the work of the former Center for Bioethics and Health Law, which investigated ethical, legal and policy issues in health sciences fields. The new center will carry out the same responsibilities as the previous one, while raising awareness for bioethics through research opportunities and coursework.
The new institute seeks to bring together faculty and students from various disciplinary backgrounds, including humanities and legal schools, for an integration of different insights. Lisa Parker, former director of the CBHL and director of the Center for Research Ethics within the new institute, expressed excitement for the institute’s advancement.
“We will use methods of analysis that are common to not only bioethics and philosophy, but to the broader field of health humanities,” Parker said.
While the Institute stands as a successor to the previous CBHL, Douglas White, the inaugural director for the Institute for Bioethics, emphasized that “this is not a renaming.” The expanded institute will focus on training students and scholars on how to better assist medical patients.
“The Institute will continue the efforts of the CBHL,” White said. “[We will] work to train [students and scholars] to have the complex communication skills needed to robustly support patients and their families as they navigate difficult medical decisions and serious illness.”
The new institute also facilitates medical education and graduate research training programs. The center will be available to assist students working towards a graduate certificate in bioethics or the Master of Arts in bioethics program.
Aditi Kapoor, a junior public health major, had great praise for bioethics, calling Pitt’s program “very easily accessible.” Kapoor used resources from the CBHL during her classes and found them “very informative.”
Kapoor emphasized the importance of bioethics and the Institute, pointing to topics such as the use of AI and ethical loopholes.
“It’s important to make sure patients are not exploited,” Kapoor said.
Parker sees the new Institute for Bioethics as an opportunity to combine interdisciplinary and humanities-based perspectives in research. According to Parker, the new institute will see an increase in scientists, scholars, and interior and exterior fellows.
The institute’s focus on intersection was echoed by White, who said a key goal of the institute “is to bring together scholars from all six schools of the health sciences.”
Kapoor hopes the institute will provide more resources for research compared to the CBHL. According to Parker, the new Institute for Bioethics will see a significant rise in assistance.
“[Anantha Shekhar, senior vice chancellor for the health sciences] stated that he was in a position to infuse substantial resources into bioethics,” Parker said.
By the end of 2024, faculty at the CBHL had collaborated on 29 bioethics-related research projects, served on 37 ethics-related national bodies and served on over a dozen ethics-related University committees, according to Parker.
White sees “great potential” to both translate insights from the Institute into practice in the UPMC system and provide scholars and students at the Institute with real-world experience through UPMC.
“The formation of an Institute for Bioethics is tangible evidence that Pitt is committed not only to being a top biomedical research institution, but also to being a national leader in addressing the ethical challenges that arise in research and the health professions,” White said.