There are numerous ethical conflicts that are unique to surgery: provider autonomy; intraoperative decsion-making; triage and trauma; normothermic regional perfusion; organ transplantation; use of AI and developing technologies; and so on.

This elective wil give students the opportunity to explore and evaluate the ethical conflicts unique to surgery. It will provide an intellectual environment to question assumptions, make bold claims, and otherwise become familiar with how values conflict in the planning and provision of surgery.

After consultation with the instructor, students will select a topic in surgical ethics. Following topic approval, student will obtain familiarity with research on that topic, identify an idea, develop that idea, and prepare an abstract that may be suitable for submission to a national conference.