Healthcare Ethics (CERT)

This program was approved for students entering the university in the Summer 2024–Spring 2025 catalog year. For more information about catalog year, go to Catalog Year Information.

Graduate Certificate in Health Care Ethics
Unit: College of Arts and Sciences (AS)
Department: Philosophy
Program Website
Academic Plan Code(s): HCE_CGR

Program Information

Health care in the twenty-first century faces a series of ethical challenges arising from unprecedented advances in the medical sciences, combined with radical cultural and organizational change. The big business of health care can bring issues of social difference and injustice directly to our attention in the faces of individual patients.

The graduate certificate in Health Care Ethics is a 15 credit hour interdisciplinary graduate certificate is drawn primarily from coursework already offered for the MA and can be completed in one academic year. The certificate focuses on issues of social justice and the importance of race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, and culture on health and health care. The certificate is designed to serve mid-career professionals, faculty and staff on hospital ethics committees, and students in graduate and professional programs who want to enhance their credentials.

Admission Requirements

Students may be admitted to the graduate Health Care Ethics certificate program in any of the three ways:

1. Admission to any graduate or professional degree program at UofL, plus a letter of interest with the name of a faculty member who is willing to endorse the student's readiness to pursue the certificate;
2. A graduate or professional degree in a related field from an accredited institution of higher learning, plus a letter of interest with one professional reference; or
3. Meeting the admissions requirements already established for the MA in Applied Philosophy.

Certificate Requirements

Students may graduate with the Certificate after completing 9 credit hours of core Bioethics (BETH) courses plus six (6) credit hours of electives drawn from either i) additional core courses, or ii) the list of approved electives in the HCE MA program, or another elective approved by the director of graduate studies for the Philosophy department.

At least nine (9) credit hours must be at the 600 level. An average of a B, with no more than one C, will be required for graduation.