 The capstone program in the Master of Bioethics is really the culmination of a year of learning put into practical experience. The reason we have a capstone project is because we believe it's absolutely essential to learn by doing and to make those relationships and have those experiences in the field that teach them how to do the work in bioethics in addition to the rigorous academic experience of being in the Master's program. It's also important to equip people with the skills and the relationships for fulfilling that drive that brought them here to make the world a better place. My capstone project explores how ethics is taught in ethics advisory committees, particularly in the way that ethics consults are taught. I'm trying to learn, you know, clinical ethics before I began my career, so I was very interested in how do people who are in the middle of their career learn ethics when they're joining these committees? How do nurses feel about ex-competency compared to physicians? I did my capstone evaluating the effectiveness of unit-based ethics rounds at Mass General on lessening moral distress and increasing moral agency. Ethics rounds at the unit-based level really do help and so I'd like to see that flourish some more at Mass General and maybe beyond. So as ethics rounds create a safe space for you to talk about the ethical dilemmas that arise in the clinical setting. My capstone was about improving professionalism in medical students by developing an undergraduate medical curriculum and bringing it back to my institution. Now I'm going to spend a second discussing how our curriculum is because it's an innovative integrative curriculum. What makes a capstone experience possible is the availability of mentors across the many teaching hospitals and other affiliated institutions with Harvard Medical School. When we look for a capstone mentor, we are looking within our own faculty and the projects that they're involved in and there are over 50 of those but also all these other people at the Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals. You get to work with brilliant students who bring enthusiasm and energy into any project but this is an opportunity that allows mentors and and also the mentees to delve into a topic that they wouldn't otherwise do and their normal research endeavors or teaching activities. The importance of a good mentor I think is really really valuable especially when you're going through the same loops that they went through. What are options that a mentor can find knowing the network that they have that can sort of help complement the theoretical stuff that the students learning in the classroom. He has given me a really good understanding of how to navigate the ethics literature and be able to apply it and no matter what I do within bioethics I think this always will be helpful. There's always research to be done and so if your passion is end of life, if your passion is moral stress among healthcare members then there's definitely a way to make that project happen. We are so fortunate to have a faculty deeply engaged in applied bioethics dedicated to doing the best in teaching and learning. There's also just nothing that you can do in a classroom that will fully replace what it actually feels like in the real world to be sitting in a room with an ethics committee talking about a very hard ethical problem and figuring out what advice to give and that's what a capstone provides.