Bioethics Grows Up

Arthur Caplan

doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060095

Abstract

When I taught my first course in bioethics to first-year students at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in the spring semester of 1981, bioethics was still in its formative years. There were scant few textbooks around and even fewer anthologies, and I could not assume that any of my students had ever read anything by a bioethicist or about bioethics. The key institutions in the field at that time, the Hastings Center, then in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, and the Kennedy Institute at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, were barely over a decade old, and only one journal devoted to bioethics had been publishing for a significant period of time. Most major medical and biomedical journals were wary of publishing pieces on ethics, because the editors did not think that articles on a soft and mushy subject such as ethics were appropriate for journals of medicine and science. An instructor in those days really had to scramble to find and assemble the best writings and be ready to incur a hefty Xeroxing bill.

Highlights

When I taught my first course in bioethics to first-year students at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in the spring semester of 1981, bioethics was still in its formative years
There were scant few textbooks around and even fewer anthologies, and I could not assume that any of my students had ever read anything by a bioethicist or about bioethics
The key institutions in the field at that time, the Hastings Center, in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, and the Kennedy Institute at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, were barely over a decade old, and only one journal devoted to bioethics had been publishing for a significant period of time

Summary

Introduction

When I taught my first course in bioethics to first-year students at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in the spring semester of 1981, bioethics was still in its formative years. There were scant few textbooks around and even fewer anthologies, and I could not assume that any of my students had ever read anything by a bioethicist or about bioethics. These days when I organize a class, I can expect that nearly every student at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine will have taken at least one course in bioethics as an undergraduate.

Results

Conclusion