Catholic Healthcare Ethics

As a student in one of our doctoral programs in Catholic healthcare ethics, you will focus on
issues of healthcare ethics consistent with the Catholic, Spiritan identity of the university.
Duquesne is committed to an education for the mind, heart and spirit and to cultivating
academic excellence, ethically responsible judgment and social justice in a globalized context.
Through one of our two doctoral programs–Ph.D. and DHCE–in Catholic healthcare ethics,
you will explore healthcare ethics from a Catholic perspective, one that particularly appeals to
Catholic healthcare organizations.

The training you receive will prepare you for a career in academia, healthcare or an array of
interconnected fields.

Course Requirements

The doctoral curriculum requires 12 courses (36 credits) beyond the master's degree. After
comprehensive exams, both doctoral programs require 6 credits of dissertation hours. Students
in the healthcare ethics master's degree track who continue on in a doctoral degree program
must complete 6 additional courses after all required M.A. courses, so that 16 courses (48
credits) have been completed before applying for the comprehensive examination.
The baccalaureate admission track requires 16 courses (48 credits) beyond the baccalaureate
degree.

Ethics Rotation Program & Internships

Through the optional Clinical and Organizational Rotations in Ethics (CORE) program, you will
receive an experience-based curriculum–in a supervised, step-by-step manner–that will train
you with the scholarly knowledge and professional skills you'll need to provide ethics services in
healthcare. The curriculum focuses on integrating clinical, organizational and professional
ethics across the healthcare organization while providing a mentored apprenticeship to train
students to undertake clinical ethics consultations, including the pre-consultation phase.

Junior rotations (HCE 746, 747) are intensely supervised and occur at UPMC Mercy Hospital,
adjacent to Duquesne University. Senior rotations (HCE 781, 782), in which you'll function as an
ethicist-in-residence, occur at UPMC Mercy Hospital or at another healthcare institution. The
Center for Global Health Ethics has multiple partnerships with local, regional and national
healthcare providers to facilitate these internships.

Internship duties include professional ethics education for facility personnel, ethics research,
policy review or development on ethical issues and prospective and retrospective case
consultation. Each 3-credits internship requires approximately 70 hours of work within the
assigned facility. 
 
The CORE program adopts an integrated ethics approach, as developed by the Veterans Health
Administration, to implement the Core Competencies for Clinical Ethics Consultation.

All prospective graduate students will be required to submit official transcripts from all colleges attended. Most programs require letters of recommendation and a personal statement. GMAT and LSAT scores are required for the schools of Business and Law, respectively. GRE scores are required for most doctoral programs and some master's programs. Other requirements could include a writing sample, resume, audition or interview.

International Students

If your undergraduate and/or graduate degrees are from an institution located outside of the United States, you must use a transcript credential evaluation service to obtain a course-by-course report. The official reports must be sent directly to Duquesne University from the organization you order through and will qualify as official transcripts. Please review our Transcript Credential Evaluation Instructions.

Application Deadlines

Application deadlines vary by program. Many programs allow students to apply for the fall or spring semester. Some programs also allow for a summer start term.

Credit transfers

Generally, an academic department may accept credits from a regionally-accredited university that correspond to the Duquesne curriculum and in which you have earned at least a 3.0 on a 4.0 scale.
The program director of the program or department offering the course establishes the final determination of the acceptance or denial of transfer credits.