Course content and focus areas
The dual master’s program in Social Ethics in Healthcare is an application-oriented and practice-focused degree program that prepares graduates for engaging and responsible roles in the healthcare sector. By combining study components from medical and social ethics, social sciences, and medicine, along with the continuous integration of practical elements into the curriculum, the program creates a unique skill set tailored to meet the growing needs of the healthcare field. Ethical questions in medicine between treatment teams and patients, organizational and leadership challenges within complex workflows and institutions, as well as overarching issues related to funding, resource allocation, and incentives in healthcare, are driving increased demands for effective internal and external communication and organizational development. Addressing these demands requires responsible professionals with the sensitivity to navigate relationships between individuals, professions, and institutions, fostering value-driven, sustainable, and ethically reflective action in the highly professional and rapidly evolving healthcare sector.
Graduates of this program are equipped to take on advisory and leadership roles in healthcare institutions, focusing on ethically reflective adaptation and forward-thinking development of these organizations.
In addition to analytical, evaluation, and moderation skills, graduates also develop communication competencies that enable them to mediate effectively between patients and clinics, physicians and patients, and among staff in addressing complex organizational and normative challenges.
The required skills are drawn from the fields of ethics (medical, institutional, corporate, and leadership ethics), social sciences (structural issues in healthcare), and medicine (clinical ethics). As a dual, practice-integrated degree program, the master’s program innovatively combines university coursework with internships and projects in the intended professional contexts, including an internship semester in a healthcare institution.
The master’s program is designed for bachelor’s degree holders with backgrounds in ethics, medicine, or sociology. Examples include bachelor’s degrees in Catholic Theology, Protestant Theology, Religious Studies, Islamic Studies, Sociology, Political Science, Philosophy, Economics, Pedagogy, Psychology, Educational Sciences, Social Work, or Care. If you are interested in the master’s program but hold a different bachelor’s degree or are considering transitioning from a foundational master’s program (such as Magister Theologiae), please feel free to contact Course Guidance.
This master’s program is a cooperative degree program between Goethe University and the Philosophical-Theological University of Sankt Georgen.
For more information, please visit the institute’s website.