Bioethics is often introduced in medical curricula as a separate subject, focusing on codes, principles, or compliance. While necessary, this approach risks treating ethics as an isolated theme rather than as a thread that weaves meaning and integrity into professional formation. For health professionals to flourish, bioethics must move beyond discrete lectures and be intentionally embedded into curriculum development, teaching practice, assessment systems, and faculty feedback cultures.

This Focus Session will reframe bioethics as a cornerstone of humanizing medical education. Participants will engage with short case vignettes and structured activities that illustrate how ethical awareness influences learner flourishing, professional identity, and resilience. Facilitators will guide discussion on ways to integrate bioethics as a longitudinal curricular strand rather than a stand-alone module. Emphasis will be placed on designing curricula that link ethical reasoning to clinical learning, developing assessment approaches that capture values and professionalism, and preparing faculty to role-model and provide constructive feedback grounded in ethics.

By the end of the session, participants will leave with a conceptual framework and a set of practical, curriculum-level strategies to integrate bioethics across the continuum of health professions education. This session directly supports the IAMSE 2026 theme by positioning bioethics as a driver of adaptability, innovation, and growth in both learners and institutions.

Learning Outcomes

1. Describe how bioethics supports flourishing and professional identity formation in medical education.
2. Identify opportunities for embedding bioethics into curriculum development across preclinical, clinical, and workplace learning.
3. Develop strategies to integrate ethical principles into teaching practice and faculty–learner interactions.
4. Explore approaches to align assessment and feedback with values of integrity, respect, and professionalism.
5. Propose methods for incorporating research and scholarship within bioethics education to ensure sustainability and impact.