The Gen-Ethics Bowl – An In-Class Activity Combining Genetics and Bioethics

Recent advances in genetics have transformed the mere possibilities of genetic testing and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis into clinical realities. Although undergraduate science professors are able to explicate the science behind these new technologies, they are not always ready to discuss the ethical and social impacts of these new practices. In order to introduce to our students the complex ethical and social issues raised by these genetic procedures, we created a week-long interactive and interdisciplinary " Gen-Ethics Bowl. " The aim is to provide the conceptual tools necessary for our students to identify ethical and social issues that often go unnoticed in a genetics course that covers only the scientific aspects. Our hope is that the Gen-Ethics Bowl will be one of many steps in training our students to become socially responsible and morally sensitive scientists. Two principal formats that we have used successfully over the years include: 1. We provide scenarios that raise ethical issues in relation to genetic technologies to groups of students. These groups consist of a mixture of three or four students drawn from a genetics course and a health-care ethics course. On the first day of their meeting, they discuss the genetic and ethical issues involved in their assigned scenario. The students from the genetics course explain to their group members the science behind the case (e.g. explaining how diet impacts a genetic condition like phenylketonuria (PKU)), while the students from the ethics course identify the main ethical tensions, the relevant stakeholders, and the method they will use to tackle the ethical challenges. Students are required to formulate a group answer/ consensus to the ethical questions associated with their case, which they then present orally to the class on the second day of the Bowl. 2. Groups are assigned a scenario and a pro or con position. Similar to the format above, students identify the relevant medical and ethical issues and formulate arguments justifying why they believe the position they advocate is correct. During day two of the Bowl, they present their arguments. The pro and con groups for the same case take turns reading their statements. Then, the groups are given two to three minutes to offer a rebuttal. We prefer cases that contain a compelling narrative with plausible characters seemingly drawn from real life stories. The New England Journal of Medicine often serves as a great generator of ideas for cases (3). Likewise, Narrative …