Employers
Approximately 20,320 philosophy and religious teachers, and 225,360 health specialties teachers are employed in the United States. Most medical ethicists are employed by academic institutions and university-related medical centers. Typically, they teach at medical and nursing schools, colleges, universities, seminaries, and divinity schools. They often do consulting at university-related and/or local health care facilities as part of a hospital ethics committee or institutional review board. For most, ethical consulting is part of their academic jobs, but some maintain private consulting practices along with their teaching positions. A new and growing trend in the field of medical ethics is to become a full-time private entrepreneur with a client pool made up of various local hospitals and health care agencies. New policies requiring all hospitals to have ethics committees has created a demand for these independent ethics professionals.
Other medical ethicists, generally those who are more interested in research and policy development than in direct involvement with the clinical aspects, work for federal agencies. For example, medical ethicists are employed by the U.S. Department of Energy for its radiation-exposure study. Other federal government employers include the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.
Medical ethicists also work for the National Institutes of Health's National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). The Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications Research Program of the NHGRI considers ethical dilemmas presented by new genetic knowledge.
State agencies usually do not hire medical ethicists for full-time positions, but this may change in the near future. There are also employment opportunities for medical ethicists at private agencies, institutes, and foundations, such as the Rockefeller Foundation or the Lilly Foundation.
Starting Out
Medical ethicists learn about job openings through personal contacts, professional journals, and listings published by professional organizations. Students looking for their first professional position in medical ethics should turn to their graduate school professors, especially their dissertation committee members, for advice on current job openings.
- Adult Day Care Coordinators
- Anthropologists
- Archaeologists
- Biochemists
- Biomedical Engineers
- Business Managers
- Cancer Registrars
- Cardiologists
- Chemical Engineers
- Chemists
- Clinic Managers
- Clinical Data Managers
- Clinical Pharmacist Practitioners
- Clinical Research Coordinators
- Community Health Program Coordinators
- Conservators and Conservation Technicians
- Contact Tracers
- Customer Success Managers
- Data Scientists
- Demographers
- Directors of Telehealth
- Drug Developers
- Economists
- Education Directors and Museum Teachers
- Elder Law Attorneys
- Ethnoscientists
- Futurists
- Genealogical Researchers
- Genealogists
- Geographers
- Geriatric Care Managers
- Geriatric Nurses
- Geriatric Psychiatrists
- Geriatric Social Workers
- Geriatricians
- Grief Therapists
- Health Advocates
- Health Care Consultants
- Health Care Insurance Navigators
- Health Care Managers
- Health Data Analysts
- Historians
- Historic Preservationists
- HIV/AIDS Counselors and Case Managers
- Home Health Care Aides
- Home Health Care and Hospice Nurses
- Hospice Workers
- Hospitalists
- Informatics Nurse Specialists
- Lexicographers
- Linguists
- Medical Record Technicians
- Medical Screeners
- Medical Secretaries
- Medical Transcriptionists
- Music Therapists
- Nurse Managers
- Nursing Home Administrators
- Personal Care Aides
- Pharmaceutical Industry Workers
- Pharmacists
- Pharmacologists
- Physicians
- Political Scientists
- Recreational Therapists
- Registered Nurses
- Rehabilitation Counselors
- Remote Health Care Engineers
- Sales Engineers
- Senior Care Pharmacists
- Social Workers
- Sociologists
- Statisticians
- Strategy Managers
- Transplant Coordinators