Abstract

This paper inaugurates a new section on education, the focus of which is on education in a broader sense. The purpose is to stimulate discussion not only about techniques of education but also to initiate a dialogue concerninig more fundamental questions and issues. What are the goals of education generally and of and for ethics committees specifically? What, for an ethics committee, is “education”? What do we mean by education in this field? To function efficiently on an ethics committee, does a member need specific training? Should the educational efforts of an ethics committee extend beyond the medical and nursing staff? If so, should they extend beyond the hospital and into the community? Is educating patients a legitimate function of an ethics committee? These are but a few of the questions that I hope will be debated over the years in the pages of this journal