Join us this year for a new case-based format, Tuesday start, and the theme of “Caring in Times of Crisis.” Program information is now available, and registration is now open.
Sign up below to be notified of further program updates We look forward to welcoming you to our historic campus.
This world-famous course offers stimulating plenary lectures by eminent scholars and clinicians, followed by in-depth small-group discussions led by expert facilitators.
The IBC is a collaborative venture between the Kennedy Institute of Ethics (KIE) and the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics (PCCB), reflecting the course’s integration of biomedical and clinical bioethics. In 2025, IBC46 attracted a large and diverse audience and generated glowing feedback from participants.
IBC46 provided an immersive, intensive experience in a compact three-day format. Day 1 was led by experts from the KIE and explored ethical theory, including core ethical principles and issues in global bioethics. Day 2 was led by experts from the PCCB and focused on key issues and challenges in clinical bioethics. Day 3 delved into selected contemporary and emerging bioethical issues.
The course retains its ever-popular small-group discussion sessions that explore the issues raised by the plenary talks, but in 2026 the IBC will have a case-based format. Plenary topical presentations will be connected to specific discussion cases that illuminate and illustrate ethical issues in realistic and complex ways. The topics and cases elaborate on components of ethical deciding and how to integrate these elements to reach wise decisions in health care, particularly in new, complicated, uncertain, and critical situations. Our focus will consistently highlight the fundamental role of care relationships in making decisions and the reciprocal link between clinical decisions and public health policies.
Plenary assemblies following each case small group will consider group insights and questions and continue collegi-al discussion with faculty panels deeply involved in the case and topic. Also new this year are a keynote on public policy by Dr. Christine Grady, a panel discussion on AI & Health Care, and the opportunity to participate in several Special Topics sessions developed around registrant interest.
Special Topics being developed include: Disability Bioethics ● The Moral Strength of Health Care Professionals ● Advancing the ‘Common Good’ in Faith-Based Health Care: Tensions in Culture and Law ● Financialization’s Threat to Medicine ● Pellegrino’s Internal Morality of Medicine ● An Approach to Clinical-Ethics Consultations and Levels of Interventions ● The Missing Patients: Caring for and Coaching Caregivers ● Ethical Questions Regarding Novel Organ-Procurement Techniques (TA-NRP) ● When Good Care Is Refused: Navigating Ethical Tensions and Risk of Harm
Professor Alyssa Newman at IBC46
We look forward to welcoming you to the historic campus of Georgetown University in the nation’s capital as we pursue, in a congenial and conversational environment, our commitment to top-quality professional education in bioethics.
For additional information, please contact us at intensivebioethicscourse@georgetown.edu