Ethical Considerations in Biomedical Engineering: Qualitative Student Perspectives from a Large Mid-Western University

Abstract

Engineering curricula provide students with opportunities to construct their understanding of what constitutes ethical engineering practice. This study examines how biomedical engineering (BME) students conceptualize ethics in a biomedical engineering context. Our previous work-in-progress study identified ten ethical considerations salient to biomedical engineering faculty members’ incorporation of ethics into their program: Economic, Environmental, Interpersonal, Legal, Organizational, Personal, Professional, Societal, Technological, and Theoretical. This study extends that work by determining how these ethical considerations were present in biomedical engineering students’ conceptualizations of ethics in biomedical engineering. We interviewed four senior-level biomedical engineering students nearing graduation from the same program in a large Midwestern university in the United States. Five individuals from engineering education or biomedical engineering backgrounds reviewed these interviews in an iterative and collaborative process. Findings from this study include a revised set of ethical considerations. This study can facilitate future dialogue on ethical considerations in the context of biomedical engineering and, we hope, engineering ethics more broadly.