Abstract
Due to the impact of biomedical technologies on human wellbeing, biomedical engineering presents discipline-specific ethical issues that can have global, economic, environmental, and societal consequences. Because ethics instruction is a component of accredited undergraduate engineering programs in the US, we developed an ethics assignment that provided biomedical engineering students with a framework for ethical decision-making and challenged them to critically reflect on ethical issues related to contemporary medical devices. Thematic analysis performed on student reflections (n = 73) addressed two research questions: (i) what considerations do biomedical engineering undergraduates describe when asked to critically reflect on ethical issues related to contemporary medical devices; and (ii) how do students describe their participation in bioethical discussions? Students described design, economic factors, and empathy most frequently as considerations. Further, students reported confidence in their ability to engage in ethical discussion upon assignment completion. Overall, our analysis builds understanding of student attitudes and engagement to help inform future ethics curriculum development.
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Due to the nature of this study, supporting data is not available. The participants did not give consent for their data to be shared publicly.
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Acknowledgements
This research was partially supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Award Number 1737157. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
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This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Award Number 1737157.
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All methods described in the manuscript that will involve human participants have been granted exemption by the [redacted] Institutional Review Board (IRB) under protocol number 2007679809.
This work was approved by the Indiana University IRB: #2007679809.
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Appendix A
Ethics Module Assignment
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Suppiger, N., Tabassum, N., Miller, S. et al. A study of biomedical engineering student critical reflection and ethical discussion around contemporary medical devices. International Journal of Ethics Education 9, 29–56 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40889-024-00183-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40889-024-00183-3