DiMeN

Digital Medical Ethics Network

01/11/2022 to 31/10/2027

Digitization is rapidly transforming the healthcare system and has a far-reaching impact on biomedical research and practice. The keywords “digital health” and “digital medicine” are associated with a variety of potentials, but also with new challenges. The subject of Medical Ethics is dedicated to addressing ensuing normative questions in research, teaching, and ethics consulting. In this way, it makes a significant contribution to good and fair healthcare, especially under the changing demands of digitalization.
As a so-called rare subject, however, Medical Ethics faces various structural challenges. Although it is often a compulsory part of study programs in the healthcare professions, many educational institutions do not have adequate programs for training in Medical Ethics. The importance of the Medical Ethics issues is in clear discrepancy with the institutional weight of the subject. Moreover, the digitalization of healthcare is changing the interdisciplinary profile of Medical Ethics. The familiar body of knowledge from the life sciences and humanities is now being extended to matters of the technical sciences. However, interdisciplinary exchange has hardly taken place so far and there is a lack of corresponding advanced training courses for medical ethicists. Due to the precarious situation of Medical Ethics at German universities, questions of responsible digitization are thus increasingly taken up by other disciplines or also by commercial actors, with detrimental effects on the quality of the resulting output.
To address these structural challenges and to strengthen the rare subject of Medical Ethics sustainably, we intend to initiate the Digital Medical Ethics Network (DiMEN). DiMEN addresses the digitization of healthcare from two perspectives: as an issue that requires strengthening Medical Ethics in research and teaching; and as an opportunity for developing new formats in teaching and ethics consultation. We aim to support Medical Ethics through various initiatives: These include the development of a curriculum to strengthen the educational program at German and international universities (Module I), the initiation of a research hub for basic research, networking, and the qualification of scientists (Module II), and the testing of digital services for ethics consultation (Module III). DiMEN is a joint project of the Institute for Ethics and History of Medicine at the University of Tübingen and the Chair of Medical Ethics with a Focus on Digitalization at the University of Potsdam.