Doctoral Degrees in Healthcare Ethics
Duquesne’s Center for Global Heath Ethics provides a number of unique scholarly and
professional training programs in healthcare ethics, among them four doctoral programs.
These programs—Ph.D. and DHCE programs in healthcare ethics and Catholic healthcare
ethics—are designed to prepare you for a future in academia, healthcare or a variety
of intersecting professions. You will focus on pivotal issues in healthcare ethics
and learn to understand these topics within the context of healthcare as a phenomenon
that connects people and the environment.
Through these programs, we cultivate academic excellence, ethically responsible judgment
and social justice in a global context. In addition to the more traditional focus
in healthcare ethics, as a student in either of these doctoral programs you will focus
on global health ethics, engage with experiences in other cultures and religions and
consider the connections between health, the environment, society and the economy.
These programs will set you apart intellectually and professionally, preparing you
to advance global discourse on healthcare ethics and advance your career. Whether
you go on to serve in a clinical ethics setting, work for an NGO or governmental body
or join teaching or research programs, you will be positioned to have a meaningful
impact on a global scale.
We offer a flexible curriculum and can accommodate distance students. The training
you receive will prepare you for a career in academia, healthcare or an array of interconnected
fields.
Degree
Doctorate
Program Requirements
The doctoral 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 only mandatory course is HCE 659 Methods in HCE. You may choose your remaining courses from the following:
- HCE-642 Multicultural Society
- HCE-643 Ethics of Care
- HCE-645 Comp. Rel. Bioethics
- HCE-648 Clinical Ethics
- HCE-653 Genetics & Ethics
- HCE-654 Research Ethics
- HCE-655 Global Bioethics
- HCE-656 End of Life Ethics
- HCE-657 Public Health Ethics
- HCE-658 Intensive Research
- HCE-659 Methods in HCE
- HCE-660 Research Writing in HCE
- HCE-662 Organizational HCE
- HCE-690 Independent Study
- HLTM-577 Legal Issues in HC
- HCE-646 Clinical Rotation, HCE-646
- HCE-647 Jr. Rotation
- HCE-681 Sr. Internship
- HCE-682 Sr. Internship
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, 647) are intensely supervised and occur at UPMC Mercy
Hospital, which is adjacent to Duquesne University.
The senior rotation internships (HCE 681, 682), in which students function as an ethicist-in-residence,
occur at UPMC Mercy Hospital or at another healthcare institution. HCE 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
150 hours of work within the assigned facility.
Typically, ethics rotations and internships may be initiated after completion of 18 credit hours of coursework. 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).
The Ph.D. degree is a research degree that combines academic and clinical education to train students in a systematic and critical manner to be scholars in the field. Hence, the Ph.D. dissertation focuses on appropriate research and writing competencies to be successful scholars in the field.
The DHCE degree is a professional degree that combines academic and clinical education to train students in a systematic and critical manner to be clinically oriented professionals in the field. Hence, the DHCE project is a practical endeavor that focuses upon the appropriate clinical and writing competencies to be successful professionals in the field.
A faculty committee (director and readers) is assigned to supervise you in the phase of doctoral writing. After the committee ascertains that your dissertation or project has been completed satisfactorily, there is an oral doctoral defense with the following possible outcomes: formal approval or the requirement to resubmit the text based on critiques at the defense.
Upon successfully completing the above, you will proceed to graduation, following the requirements of the university for submitting the doctoral text and planning for graduation.
Application Requirements
Submit the university application through the graduate application portal including a resume or curriculum vitae.
If you are in the process of completing a degree, you may have your college or university submit an up-to-date official transcript with your application to Duquesne University via email or by mail to:
Duquesne University
McAnulty Graduate School of Liberal Arts
600 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15282
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.
FAQ's
About the PhD in Healthcare Ethics