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The relevance of training in bioethics grows day by day. The pandemic we are experiencing confirms this and has raised some essential bioethical dilemmas that are added to those that already exist, and that challenge us and require a well-founded response. Is it lawful to eliminate a human life to avoid suffering? In case of scarcity of resources, which patients should be given preference in treatment? Should biomedical experimentation be limited for moral reasons? Is surrogacy legal? Should we edit the human genome? Is human embryo experimentation ethically acceptable? How to articulate an adequate relationship between economic and social development and respect for nature?
The Master in Bioethics deals with traditional issues in this area and introduces new approaches, such as environmental studies. His training itinerary is based on a solid anthropological and ethical education that is then projected on bioethical problems related to the beginning of life, its end, clinical practice, and biolegal issues and our relationship with the environment.
This training background allows graduates to acquire the essential skills to autonomously address the challenges that the development of biomedical sciences pose today, and learn to analyze bioethical problems in depth and in an interdisciplinary way, to discern the most correct courses of action before bioethical dilemmas, to argue in contexts of moral pluralism, and learn to deliberate correctly and make well-founded value judgments that contribute to defending the dignity of every person.
The URJC Master in Bioethics has been successfully training the professionals of the future for thirteen years, with a clear interdisciplinary vocation: it is aimed at healthcare professionals and managers, lawyers, educators, researchers in health sciences, specialists in philosophy and the humanities.
It is taught by a plural cadre of professors, experts of great prestige in their respective subjects, from different European universities. The faculty combines the profile of academic bioethics with that of healthcare practice. Our professors are also part of important committees of experts, such as the Spanish Bioethics Committee.
Teaching is articulated through various teaching methodologies, with which it is intended to go beyond the acquisition of knowledge towards an authentic formation of the person. Inverted learning, proposal and discussion of dilemmatic cases and incorporation of the service-learning methodology in the TFMs place the master's degree in bioethics at the forefront of training in bioethics.
The training offered is especially focused on the person and, above all, on those in a situation of greater vulnerability. Master's students have the opportunity to provide a service to their community as part of their research in bioethics or to participate in solidarity projects aimed at improving the living conditions of vulnerable people, in some aspect related to their health care.
Year after year, students value the master's degree with an excellent average rating. In it, the evaluation of the teaching staff stands out, both for their academic competence and for their dedication to the students. Graduates continue to update their training through regular seminars organized in collaboration with the alumni association. Faculty, students and graduates constitute an authentic academic community in search of innovative responses to the challenges of contemporary bioethics.
The URJC master's degree in bioethics is the only one of these characteristics taught by a public university in the Community of Madrid. Its official nature allows graduates access to doctoral studies, and thus consolidate their research project in bioethics and open new job and academic opportunities for them.
The master's degree offers essential training to form part of Healthcare Ethics, Clinical Research, Bioethics or Research Ethics Committees of Universities or other organizations.