Feeder Disciplines

Abstract

Traditionally, health care ethics consultants have come to the practice of ethics consultation from a variety of academic backgrounds. For example, there are those who pursued ethics through the study of philosophy and theology and those who entered the field through the study of medicine. Most of these ethics consultants have formal training in only one discipline, having enriched their disciplinary training by attending seminars in ethics, conducting sabbatical studies in ethics, or collaborating ``on-the-job'' with colleagues from other disciplines. Some of these consultants have interdisciplinary training (i.e., training in a program that integrates several disciplines, as in some bioethics programs), and a select few have multidisciplinary training (i.e., disciplinary training in two or more fields, as with a physician-philosopher).