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Bioethics students' Yale internship

25 June 2008

Law student Laura Ballantyne-Brodie is one of two Monash students completing an internship at Yale.

Two Monash students are currently in Connecticut in the US completing internships at Yale, one of America's top universities.

Undergraduate law student Laura Ballantyne-Brodie and postgraduate arts student Jennifer Brown, who is completing a Masters in Bioethics, are among 36 students from around the world completing the two-month internship at Yale's Centre for Bioethics.

Bioethics concerns the ethical implications of developments in various medical, biological, environmental and other scientific matters, including research practises and the use of new technology.

The students are being taught by some of the world's leading bioethics academics on topics including robot minds and human ethics, exploitation in international research, nursing ethics and health care policy, conflicts between medicine and religion, and the ethics of distribution of health care.

Ms Ballantyne-Brodie said she had a strong interest in applied ethics and medical ethics.

"I am particularly interested in how ethics is relevant to reproductive technologies such as IVF, pre-natal screening techniques and ethical issues involved in research in developing countries," she said.

"In particular, I am interested in the legal/regulatory responses to such issues and the interplay between ethics and the law."

Ms Ballantyne-Brodie intends to practise as a solicitor in Australia and the UK once she completes her Monash degree, before studying for a Masters degree in Law and Bioethics in America.