Five faculty members representing three academic departments, one member of the MSOE Board of Regents, and one graduate student traveled to Porto, Portugal in March 2022 to present their work on bioethics and medical ethics. The delegation included Dr. Charles Tritt, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department; Drs. Jon Borowicz, David Howell and Patrick Jung, Humanities, Social Science and Communication Department; Dr. Victoria Carlson-Oehlers, School of Nursing; Dr. Bernard Cohen ’71, MSOE Regent; and Megan Brock ’21, graduate student, M.S. Perfusion.  

The 14th World Conference on Bioethics, Medical Ethics and Medical Law offers an international platform for fruitful scientific discourse on more than 60 topics and subtopics in the fields of bioethics, medical ethics and health law. MSOE’s ethics programming has been steadily growing over the past decade as innovations in technology, medicine and business bring new moral challenges to the forefront.  

Sessions on the ethical aspects of e-medicine, ethics and bioethics in education, medical ethics in the digital age, and AI in health care have been of particular interest for Tritt, associate professor of biomedical engineering.  

“The conference is going very well from multiple perspectives,” said Tritt. “We are learning a lot. But also, I think we’re making a good impression. Our audiences have been noticeably engaged.”  

“We’re also making lots of connections. I was approached by a professor from a Bulgarian university regarding a collaboration involving ethics education in STEM disciplines and particularly the ethical implications of AI,” he said.  

Additionally, Tritt and Howell have had discussions with representatives from two Brazilian universities regarding possible collaborations involving bioethics education in engineering, nursing and medicine.  

“MSOE’s representatives did a great showing through all of their efforts,” said Cohen. “Every one of their presentations were well done, well presented and informative. I am proud to be associated with them all.”  

MSOE presentations at the World Conference included:  

Moral Friendship as the Cultivation of Moral Taste and Judgment in Professional Life
Dr. Jon Borowicz, professor, Humanities, Social Science and Communication Department  

The Ethics of Short-Term International Humanitarian Missions: Servant Leadership as an Ethical Framework
Megan Brock ’21, graduate student, M.S. Perfusion  

Short-term International Humanitarian Missions: The Scholarly Debate
Dr. Victoria Carlson-Oehlers, associate professor, MSOE School of Nursing 

Protected Health Information Vulnerability in Telemedicine
Dr. Bernard A. Cohen ’71, MSOE Regent  

Finding Value, and Values, in the Tangible: Nishida Kitaro’s Pure Experience Theory
Dr. David Howell, professor, Humanities, Social Science and Communication Department  

Short-term International Humanitarian Missions: Results of a Research Study
Dr. Patrick J. Jung, professor, Humanities, Social Science and Communication Department  

Integrating UNESCO Bioethics Declaration Topics into an Undergraduate Biomedical Engineering Curriculum
Dr. Charles Tritt, associate professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department  

Read more about their work in the MSOE Newsroom.