THE 27TH ANNUAL

CANADIAN BIOETHICS SOCIETY CONFERENCE

MAY 25 – 28, 2016 | MARRIOTT DOWNTOWN EATON CENTRE HOTEL

Theme

The theme of the 2016 Canadian Bioethics Conference is Achieving Better Health: The Role of Bioethics Education, Engagement and Exploration. Presenters and participants are invited to contemplate a broad canvas of ethical concerns associated with the achievement of better health. Issues may range from the local to the global, from individual patients to populations, from practice to policy and from single organizations to complex systems. In particular, we will be taking a closer look at this conference at bioethics education, public engagement in bioethics, and bioethics exploration (inclusive of research ethics and research in bioethics).

Education: This conference marks the first time in the Canadian Bioethics Society’s history that there has been an explicit focus on bioethics education as a conference theme. Given the challenges of the 21st century, we need to ask what should bioethics education look like? What are the core ethics competencies for health professionals, for policy makers, for bioethicists and other stakeholders? How does bioethics education achieve better health for all? We invite participants to reflect on topics such as the development of bioethics curriculums for health professionals, methodologies for teaching bioethics (e.g., web-based, case-based, skills-based), bioethics education for a range of learners, evaluation of bioethics education programs, and the impact of bioethics education on health.

Engagement: In our current health environment, there is an emphasis on ensuring that the public/patient voice is represented in all aspects of public life – developing public policy, setting research agendas, and so forth.  With new technologies, our ways of communicating and quickly reaching large number of individuals locally, and across the world, have expanded exponentially. What bioethics questions does this raise? What implications does this have for the practice of bioethics? How can we best use these communication tools? Participants may wish to explore, for example, ethical concerns related to the use of social media to study people’s behavior and views, strategies for ensuring public engagement is meaningful and representative of diversity, and methods for stimulating public engagement in bioethics-related issues.

Exploration (Research): CBS is excited to be partnering for the first time with the Canadian Association of Research Ethics Boards (CAREB) to present a number of pre-conference workshops and an opening evening keynote presentation and reception on May 25 to which members from both groups are welcome to attend. In addition to this collaboration in research ethics, the CBS conference will explore key bioethics research questions: How does bioethics address the ethical challenges of doing research in today’s context – “big” data, genetics, vaccine development in the context of epidemics? How do we conduct research on bioethics issues that is relevant and meaningful and makes a difference in achieving better health? Participants may wish to present their empirical research on bioethics-related topics, as well as discuss new and perennial research ethics issues.

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