For immediate release:September 26, 2002.
For more information, contact George Stamatis, 216-368-3635 or gxs18@po.cwru.edu

CLEVELAND—Harold Hong and Jonathan Ida were in an orientation meeting for first-year medical students when they learned about a new program that would allow them to obtain a master's degree in bioethics while earning a medical degree.

The Class of 2004 members became the program's first participants.

First-year medical students Harold Hong and Jonathan Ida with Stuart Youngner, the Susan E. Watson Professor and director of the Department of Bioethics at the CWRU School of Medicine.

CWRU, with its Department of Bioethics, formerly named the Center for Biomedical Ehtics, is one of only two universities in the country to offer a pure bioethics doctorate program in addition to the master's and joint degree programs it offers in conjunction with several schools at CWRU.

"The big draw of the program was the prospect of being able to do some solid work on bioethical problems that bear upon the practice of all physicians," said Hong, who majored in philosophy as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

"To be able to work on these problems . . . prior to entering the clinical world struck me as being a unique opportunity to really grow as a physician." Ida said, "I was interested from the start in some kind of joint program. This one was in the humanities . . . and it also didn't tack any extra time on to medical school."

Studies in the humanities appeal to Ida, he said, because "I feel like my science does better when I have humanities to balance it."

Students like Hong and Ida will do well in the joint degree program, said Stuart Youngner, Susan E. Watson Professor and director of the Department of Bioethics, and a 1970 alumnus of the School of Medicine.

"Students must be very, very strong in sciences and yet also have an affinity for the humanities," Youngner said.

Ida, as an undergraduate student at the University of Arizona, majored in biochemistry and Judaic studies.

"I've always been interested in religion," the Akron, Ohio, area native said. "Religion is a very core, basic way of learning about human nature. This [program] is similar in a secular way."

The master's degree portion of the program requires completion of 27 credit hours, some of which also are counted toward the medical degree. During the first year of medical school, students are required to take the 12-hour, two-semester Foundations in Bioethics course that involves readings, discussions and paper-writing. The program offers the added benefit of exposing medical students to others taking courses through the Department of Bioethics-undergraduates and graduate students as well as practicing lawyers, social workers, businesspeople and health care professionals.

"The program is extremely demanding because the students are doing this in the four years of medical school without additional time," Youngner said.

Hong said the program is challenging for another reason: "The nature of bioethical inquiry is very different from more traditional academic ethical inquiries because bioethical problems . . . demand to know within a matter of days what actions in the real world should be recommended."

Hong, a Cleveland native who decided to enter the field of medicine to "make a difference both in individual lives and society at large," said he will choose a specialty that "will allow me to spend time with my patients and [allow] continuity of care. . . . I also hope that my specialty will allow me the time to do research and writing in both science and bioethics."

Hong already has pursued additional studies related to bioethics, participating in the inaugural Health Student Summer Mission Project in the summer of 2001.

The Medical Strategic Network program teaches participants "how to share faith with patients in a nonintrusive way," according to the April/May issue of Physician, a magazine published by Focus on the Family. Hong graced the cover of that issue.

Hong said he believes his work toward the bioethics degree "makes me more aware of how torn and confusing the clinical world can be" and will provide more opportunities in training and specialty programs.

Ida, who organized a group of medical students to study issues in bioethics, echoed his thoughts.

"I learned that there are more sides to every issue than I had thought," he said, also agreeing with Hong's sentiments about career opportunities. "I think it opens up more doors as far as career options."

Ida is investigating various areas of the specialty of pediatrics, but added, "If I decide to take a break from practicing, I can work in an organization in an administrative sense."

Most importantly, Ida said, the program "makes you a better citizen of the world and [able to] understand issues people really deal with."

For more information about the M.D., M.A. program and other bioethics programs, see http://www.cwru.edu/med/bioethics/bioethics.html.

–CWRU–

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