About the Adventist Bioethics Consortium

The Consortium is a collaborative learning network designed to enhance service in biomedical ethics for the participating organizations. Our primary goal is to share practical information about the application of ethical principles in health care.

For over 150 years, the Adventist church has established and operated hospitals all over the world to provide medical care in ways that restore physical health and also nourish spiritual wellbeing. The church’s health ministry is shaped by a commitment to provide physical, mental, and spiritual care with ethical integrity. Over the decades, ethical questions in health care have grown ever more complex. Current issues such as equitable access to care, physician-assisted suicide, genomic medicine, gender reassignment, embryonic stem cell research, and many others challenge hospitals both large and small. The Adventist Bioethics Consortium facilitates careful consideration of such issues by bringing together health systems’ leaders and ethics experts to consult, collaborate, and provide education.

The Consortium seeks to accomplish the following objectives:

  1. Assemble a repository of policy resources for member health systems
  2. Offer educational opportunities on bioethical issues pertinent to health care for ethics committee members, clinical ethics consultants, clinicians, and health care administrators
  3. Coordinate a web-based clinical ethics consultation service for member hospitals
  4. Facilitate a network of ethicists, clinicians, and administrators to foster collaborative scholarship and publication on ethical issues
  5. Provide in-person networking and educational opportunities by organizing the annual Adventist Bioethics Conference
  6. Deliver in-person training and consultation tailored to the specific needs of individual member hospitals or health systems
  7. Connect ethics leaders in the Adventist health systems with Adventist church leadership