About the Department

Director: Professor Pilar León Sanz (mpleon@unav.es)

We are an interdisciplinary Department of the School of Medicine at University of Navarra. We have a close relationship and connections with the Science and Pharmacy Schools at University of Navarra, as well.

The Aims and Mission of the Department

The aims of the Department shall be to teach, research and disseminate the Bioethics, Medical Ethics and History of Medicine and Science, both as an academic discipline and as a subject of broader public interest. We complement this focus with an analysis of the contemporary medical anthropological tendencies. And our group give special attention to the ethics of biomedical research.

Today it is becoming increasingly clear that health professions are subordinate to the values of the human person. In addition, the new dilemmas and debates which now arise with regard to human life, and so on, beg for the creation of some foundation which would promote the study and prompt resolution of such important issues.

Ethical competency is intrinsically related to nature and, ultimately, to the health professions. It provides those professionals with the capacity to understand the sense as well as the consequences of the novel situations, clinical procedures, or the diverse judicial standards. This is especially relevant since the application of the most general principles of our profession – such as respect for life, the principle of sociability and subsidiary – to specific cases, is becoming ever more complex.

While primarily devoted to research and pregraduate teaching, the Department will also play a prime role in outreach and in fostering public understanding of the subject, through teaching and training, through programmes of seminars, lectures and symposia, through publishing, broadcasting and other appropriate activities. It will have an international profile, attracting high calibre scholars and students from abroad, and participating in exchanges with other institutions around the world.