The Wellstar Fellowship in Clinical Ethics in seeking applicants for its 2025–2026 fellowship cohort. The fellow would be expected to start on or around July 1, 2025. This one-year, full-time, non-ACGME program is designed to offer the necessary training for graduates to be able to deliver quality ethics consultation and engage in other fundamental clinical ethics activities. The aim of the Wellstar Fellowship in Clinical Ethics is to promote advanced competencies in our fellows such that graduates are prepared for employment as clinical ethicists or ethics program leaders in a variety of healthcare settings.
Wellstar Clinical Ethics Fellowship Program
Our training is based on the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) Core Competencies for Healthcare Ethics Consultation and the most current competencies and milestones identified within the field. Fellows will:
• Rotate on Wellstar’s high-volume Ethics Consultation Service across nine hospitals, three inpatient hospice facilities, three skilled nursing facilities, and numerous outpatient sites for 28 weeks and 12 weekends.
• Train under nine Clinical Ethicists, most of whom are fellowship-trained and all of whom are HEC-C certified.
• Rotate with a number of other clinical services in order to strengthen their understanding of the spectrum of healthcare delivery. External rotations may include advance care planning outpatient; care coordination; chief nursing officer; emergency department; emergency medical services; family medicine outpatient; home health; hospice; hospital medicine; ICU; inpatient psychiatry; labor & delivery; palliative care; patient experience; surgery; speech; spiritual health; and vice president of medical affairs.
• Round regularly alongside Clinical Ethicist staff in ICUs and other hospital units.
• Learn to conduct Moral Distress Conversations with healthcare teams under the supervision of Ethics Program staff.
• Participate in on-site, formal skills training with professional actors. Fellows also receive training alongside Ethics Program staff from national clinical ethics experts in areas such as communication skills, moral distress support, mediation, and conflict management (opportunities vary each year).
• Develop a QI project
• Fellows are expected to take and pass the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) HEC-C certification exam before the end of the fellowship to become a certified healthcare Ethics Consultant.
Application
• Deadline: December 15, 2024. Applications will be reviewed as they are submitted.
• Applications will be considered from professionals who have a terminal post-graduate degree (MD, JD, PhD, or equivalent) in bioethics, medicine, philosophy, law, religion, nursing, social work, or another field related to the practice of clinical or academic bioethics. Certain ABD candidates (those who have completed all doctoral work other than the dissertation) may be considered if their dissertation significantly relates to clinical ethics and will be completed within the first twelve months of fellowship. Exceptional candidates with masters-level degrees may be considered.
• Application materials include:
1. A curriculum vitae
2. A cover letter outlining the candidate’s interest in this fellowship, the candidate’s qualifications, and the candidate’s career goals.
If you are interested in applying but have not finished your dissertation while working on your PhD, the cover letter must also explain: the dissertation project and its relation to clinical ethics, as well as projected timeline for completion.
3. One example of scholarly writing (preferably a published or peer-reviewed paper).
4. Contact information for three references.
Additional information and application guidelines are available at: https://www.wellstar.org/about-us/ethics-program/fellowship