Duquesne’s master’s-level healthcare ethics program focuses on the study of ethical
issues related to the many components of healthcare, providing you with a comprehensive
understanding of the ethical and moral principles that underlie healthcare practices,
policies and decision-making.
As a healthcare ethics student, you will explore topics such as decision-making capacity,
surrogate decision-making, beneficence and health justice, alongside the philosophical,
religious and cultural perspectives that shape attitudes toward ethical issues in
healthcare.
Upon graduation, you may build a career in a variety of sectors, including healthcare
ethics consultation, hospital administration, healthcare policy, or academic research,
where you will apply your knowledge to real-world ethical dilemmas in the healthcare
field. The program is also the perfect starting point for graduates to pursue a Ph.D.
in healthcare ethics.
Requirements & Path to Further Study
This master’s program requires a total of 10 courses (30 credits): Two required courses
plus eight courses selected from our healthcare ethics courses. You may choose the
eight other courses according to your interests. You can find the listing of required
courses and elective courses under Program Requirements below.
There is no requirement for a thesis or for a comprehensive examination, but to apply
you must already have earned a bachelor’s degree.
As a candidate for the master of arts in healthcare ethics, you are eligible to receive
a Master of Arts Scholarship through the Duquesne University McAnulty College and
Graduate School, which can reduce degree costs by 25%.
If, after earning your M.A. degree, you want to move on to the Ph.D. program, 18 more
credits will be required, so that 48 total credits have been completed before you
may apply for the comprehensive examination.
Program Information
Our master's-level healthcare ethics program delves into ethical issues across healthcare
components, fostering a comprehensive understanding of moral principles guiding practices,
policies, and decision-making.
The master degree programs adopt the following course planner to enable you to track
your coursework. All courses are 3 credit hours, and all course selections must be
approved by your academic advisor. The two mandatory courses are HCE 649-Empirical
Methods in Healthcare Ethics and HCE 659- Normative Methods in Healthcare Ethics.
You may choose your remaining courses from the following list of courses or list of
clinical rotations.
The master's level curriculum requires 10 courses (30 credits) from this list.
HCE 643 - End of Life Care Ethics
HCE 645- Comparative Religious Bioethics
HCE 648- Clinical Ethics
HCE 649- Empirical Methods in Healthcare Ethics (required)
HCE 650- Beginning of Life Ethics
HCE 653- Genetics & Ethics
HCE 654- Research Ethics
HCE 655- Global Bioethics
HCE 658- Intensive Research in Healthcare Ethics
HCE 659- Normative Methods in Healthcare Ethics (required)
HCE 660- Research Writing in Healthcare Ethics
HCE 662- Organizational Healthcare Ethics
HCE 690- Independent Study
The Ethics Rotation Program is titled Clinical and Organizational Rotations in Ethics
(CORE) and involves these four rotations. These courses are electives and count as
regular courses towards the degree.
HCE-646 Junior Clinical Rotation I (CORE I)
HCE-647 Junior Clinical Rotation II (CORE II)
HCE-681 Senior Clinical Internship I (CORE III)
HCE-682 Senior Clinical Internship II (CORE IV)
The program provides you with an experience-based curriculum to learn in a supervised,
step-by-step manner the scholarly knowledge and professionals skills for providing
ethics services in healthcare.
The curriculum focuses on integrating clinical, organizational and professional ethics
across the healthcare organization. The program also seeks to provide you with a mentored
apprenticeship to undertake clinical ethics consultations, including the pre-consultation
phase.
The junior rotations (HCE 646, HCE 647) are intensely supervised and occur at UPMC
Mercy Hospital, which is adjacent to Duquesne University.
The senior rotation internships (HCE 681, HCE 682), in which students function as
an ethicist-in-residence, occur at UPMC Mercy Hospital or at another healthcare institution.
Our Center has multiple partnerships with local, regional, and national health care
providers to facilitate these internships. Internship duties include professional
ethics education for facility personnel, ethics research, policy review or development
on ethical issues and prospective and retrospective case consultation. Each 3-credit
internship requires approximately 70 hours of work within the assigned facility.
The CORE program adopts an integrated ethics approach, as developed by the Veterans
Health Administration, to implement the Core Competencies for Clinical Ethics Consultation
(recently revised by the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities).
“My real-life experiences as a student, in and outside the classroom, provided
valuable skills and knowledge, as well as opportunities to pursue graduate and teaching
assistantships. Students can pursue research and assist others in presenting and publishing
their research.”
Mariah Chobany
Application Requirements
All students must submit a completed online application with a resume or curriculum
vitae.
All students must submit official academic transcripts. If your undergraduate and/or
graduate degrees are from an institution located outside of the United States, you
must use a transcript credential evaluation service to obtain a course-by-course report.
The official reports must be sent directly to Duquesne University from the organization
you order through and will qualify as official transcripts.
MA, PhD and DHCE applications require three letters of recommendation. Typically,
the three letters should be from faculty in the academic program(s) in which the student
studied. Graduate Certificate applications require two letters of recommendation written
by persons who have the academic or professional competence to assess the suitability
of the applicant for academically rigorous courses on healthcare ethics.
Students must submit a personal statement indicated their motivation to apply for
this program along with their professional career goals.
Students must submit a writing sample, preferably an academic sample that was previously
submitted for grade or shared with an audience.
Only applicable to international students where English is not their first language.
FAQ's
About the Master's in Healthcare Ethics
No, we do not require the GRE.
The MA program takes approximately 1.5 years as a full-time student to complete, depending
on your credentials.
The entire program may be completed from a distance. While we do encourage students
to be present for the program, we understand this is not always an option. Therefore,
we both record and livestream all of our lectures and major events to be viewed online.
We use Zoom for students who cannot attend classes in person. In this way, they can
participate in class from a distance. Students who unable to participate in class
either in person or from a distance, can watch the class recording at a time that
is convenient to them.
Yes. Funding is available for PhD/DHCE students only. Unfortunately, funding is not
available for distance learners or masters students, though you may be eligible for
other financial aid. Funding is available as merit-based scholarship or graduate assistantship.
This funding requires students to be present at the Center for Healthcare Ethics several
hours per week. Funding is competitive, but does not require a separate application.
Any student interested in applying for funding should apply by March 25th for consideration.
Graduate Certificate students may start in either fall or spring. Unfortunately, the
Center only offers Fall entry into the MA, PhD and DHCE programs. The deadline for
applying to these programs is August 1st of each year. Doctoral applicants wishing
to be considered for funding should apply by March 25th.
For the writing sample, the admission committee expects a text, written by the applicant,
that shows that he or she is able to develop and present a coherent academic argument
with good literature integration. Manuscripts written by more than one author are
not acceptable. There is no page requirement for the writing sample, but a good sample
will normally be at least five pages in order to give the admission committee the
opportunity to assess the applicant's research and writing skills. The writing sample
need not be new. Ideally, the writing sample is in the area of healthcare ethics or
bioethics, but that is not necessary.
The personal statement is primarily intended to tell the admissions committee why
you want to attend graduate school and what you intend to gain from the program. The
personal statement will differ for every individual and should reflect who you are
as a person and scholar. It does not need to be a formal research proposal, but should
generally outline your interests and motivation for studying healthcare ethics. What
is it about healthcare ethics that makes you want to pursue a degree and career in
it?
