Each year The National Catholic Bioethics Center presents a series of two-day seminars in various cities across the United States to address current topics in bioethics. Required for those participating in the Center’s National Catholic Certification Program in Health Care Ethics, these seminars are open to all engaged in, or preparing to engage in, health care ministries consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church. These seminars are intended to benefit health care workers, clergy, those involved in research in the life sciences, members of ethics committees, and others who provide spiritual support and counsel to patients and their families. Those interested in understanding and advancing the Church’s moral tradition in health care will also find them accessible and informative.

The organizing framework for the curriculum is the application of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services to critical issues raised in medicine and the life sciences. The seminars are structured to equip participants with the awareness to present, analyze, and resolve complex bioethical dilemmas encountered in clinical education and research from an interdisciplinary perspective. Faculty for each seminar includes NCBC staff ethicists and other distinguished experts.

Objectives

The objectives of each seminar include the training of those engaged in health care ministry and other interested individuals to effectively represent the Church’s moral teaching in their various institutions as it is summarized in the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. Upon completion of the program, students will be able to do the following:

• Describe how the inherent dignity of the human person serves as the objective basis for the Church’s moral tradition in health care

• State the Church’s moral teaching as expressed in Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services to resolve complex dilemmas encountered in clinical education, practice, and research

• Identify some of the resources available to health care workers and others involved in the health care ministry which provide guidance for the resolution of bioethical issues

Seminar Topics

• Assisted Reproductive Technologies

• Prenatal and Neonatal Complications

• Stem Cell Research and Cloning

• Ordinary and Extraordinary Means

• Transgender and Gender Dysphoria

• Determination of Death and Organ Transplantation

• Issues of Cooperation between Catholic and Non-Catholic Institutions

Continuing Education Credit Opportunities

• Chaplains: The National Association of Catholic Chaplains has approved this program for 12 continuing education hours.

Past Program Reviews

Attendees have shared high praise for NCBC offerings: “exceptional program helping each participant understand how to apply Catholic teaching to challenging ethical issue”; and  “extremely important for physicians as the bioethical principles with which you become familiar in real-life patient situations make decisions much easier to make.” For detailed evaluation responses, please email or phone Julie Kelley at 215-871-2013. The National Catholic Bioethics Center also offers a one-year online certification program for those interested in a more in-depth study.

Seminar Enrollment Benefits

Those who enroll receive the following:

• Full participation in the two-day seminar

• One electronic copy of the seminar program book

• By request - One copy of Catholic Health Care Ethics: A Manual for Practitioners

Conflict of Interest Statement

The content of the information which will be presented will promote quality or improvements in health care and will not promote a specific proprietary business interest of a commercial interest.