Surgical Ethics in the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society provides the collaborative infrastructure for normative and empirical investigations into topics important to surgical patient care. We educate on these topics at Vanderbilt, disseminate our knowledge through publications and presentations internationally, and train students, residents, and faculty in surgical ethics research. Our mission is to enhance the quality and impact of surgical ethics in practice and scholarship.
Current Initiatives
- Supporting scholarship by surgical and anesthesia trainees and medical students on surgical ethics topics (see sidebar)
- Developing and maintaining a Surgical Ethics Clearinghouse of topic-specific research and articles (see sidebar).
- Building a database of surgical ethics consults and cases for training and research.
- Identifying competencies in ethics for surgical trainees
Education
We hold quarterly surgical ethics research seminars as part of the Center for Biomedical Ethics faculty research program. Dr. Allan Peetz leads a General Surgery Ethics M&M on months with fifth Wednesdays at 6am in Light Hall.
The Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society also developed a conference on the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications of Surgical Recording, held virtually on May 14th, 2021. More details on the conference can be found at www.surgicalrecording.org.
An annotated bibliography on recording in the operating room that was compiled for this conference can be found here.
