bioethics.com

Ethics Grand Rounds: Ethical Approaches to Migrant Health: A Membership Based Account
2025-03-11 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Hybrid, PA
The ethical imperative to protect the health of migrants in the United States is grounded in multiple frameworks, including human rights, public health ethics, and justice-based theories. This Ethics Grand Rounds will focus on a membership-based account, which argues that undocumented immigrants are embedded members of society who contribute economically, socially, and culturally—entitling them to health protections that protect their opportunities. Using restrictive migrant health policies as a case study, Dr. Thalia Porteny will examine how exclusionary policies that limit access to healthcare coverage result in poorer health outcomes, particularly in mental health. She will present an evidence base demonstrating how these policies exacerbate disparities, increase healthcare costs, and undermine ethical commitments to reciprocity and fairness. Ultimately, this talk will explore policy pathways and advocacy efforts that align with ethical principles and public health goals, emphasizing the role of clinicians, institutions, and policymakers in promoting more inclusive approaches to migrant health.
Join us on March 11th for a conversation on Migrant Health with Thalia Porteny, PhD, MSc, and Division of Ethics Chief Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, PhD. The discussion will include a Q&A session with guest speaker Eunice Rendón Cárdenas, PhD, an expert in migrant health and the Executive Director of Agenda Migrante and Red VIRAL.
Ethics Grand Rounds is a series organized by the Division of Ethics in the Department of Medical Humanities & Ethics. The goal of Ethics Grand Rounds is to engage our community of health professionals, scholars, scientists and trainees across career stages and disciplines by elevating important topics and debates in medical ethics that relate to clinical practice, research, implementation, and education.

Ethics and the Law and Regulation of Medical AI
2025-03-07 12:30 - 13:30 (America/Chicago) | Online
Artificial intelligence is poised for impact on every aspect of healthcare, healthcare systems, and clinical practice. As use cases emerge, careful analysis of ethical concerns and new legal and regulatory tools are needed. This conversation among experts will explore the ethical considerations for medical and consider current and possible legal and regulatory approaches.
Featuring I. Glenn Cohen, JD and Claudia E. Haupt, PhD, JSD, LLM. Moderated by Mason Marks, MD, JD.

Ethics Grand Rounds: “Graphic Narratives, Comics, and Illustration in Medicine and Medical Ethics”
2025-03-06 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Online
Speaker: Sherine Hamdy, PhD, University of California, Irvine
Dr. Hamdy is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of California Irvine, where she joined the faculty in 2017. Prior to that she was a tenured faculty member at Brown University where she taught since 2006. She is the author of Our Bodies Belong to God (University of California 2012), co-author of Lissa: a story of friendship, medical promise, and revolution (University of Toronto Press 2017) and co-creator of Landing a Place (Penguin Random house 2026). She teaches courses on medical anthropology and is currently working on a project about women comics creators in the Arab world and its diaspora.
Talk Description: Medical journals and curricula have embraced the emerging field of graphic medicine — narrative medicine that juxtaposes images and text. Patients of chronic illness, caretakers, and health care practitioners have all created valuable accounts in this medium about their struggles to maintain their humanity in the often de-humanizing world of clinical encounters. In this talk, Dr. Hamdy takes us through myriad examples to illustrate the rich capacities of graphic narratives to question day-to-day medical practices and experiences of chronic illness to give us new perspectives on disability, patienthood, caretaking and healing.

Reasonable Variability or Unethical Inequity: Exploring Ethics of Policy Differences at Hospitals
2025-02-28 12:30 - 14:00 (America/Chicago) | Online
Hospital policies have a fundamental role in the care of patients, yet significant variability exists across hospitals in core patient-facing policies. In this Clinical Ethics Conversation, we will learn from clinical ethics leaders about variations in policy across their institutions (using policies addressing potentially inappropriate/non-beneficial treatment as a case example) and examine ethical arguments that support or oppose such variability.
Featuring Kerri Kennedy, DBe, RN, HEC-C, Lindsay Semler, DNP, RN, CCRN, HEC-C, David Sontag JD, MBE, HEC-C, and Kayte Spector-Bagdady JD, MBE, HEC-C. Moderated by Jonathan M. Marron, MD, MPH, HEC-C.

Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen featuring Robert Klitzman, M.D.
2025-02-27 18:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Inperson, 3640 Colonel Glenn Highway,, Dayton,, OH, 45435, United States
On Thursday, February 27, Dr. Robert Klitzman, Director of the M.S. in Bioethics program at the Columbia University School of Professional Studies, will join Emmy Award-winning writer Randy Cohen on Cohen’s public radio podcast Person Place Thing.
Person Place Thing is an interview show based on the idea that people are especially engaging when they speak not directly about themselves but about something they care about. Guests talk about one person, one place, and one thing that is important to them.
Cohen’s conversation with Dr. Klitzman will be recorded in front of a live audience and released as a podcast episode at a later date. Free and open to the public.
About the speakers

Robert Klitzman, M.D. is a professor of psychiatry at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Joseph Mailman School of Public Health and the director of the online and in-person Bioethics master’s and certificate programs at Columbia University. He has written over 180 scientific journal articles, ten books, and numerous chapters on critical issues in bioethics regarding doctor-patient relationships and communication, research, genetics, mental health, pandemics, and other areas.
Dr. Klitzman has received numerous awards for his work, including fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund, the Aaron Diamond Foundation, The Hastings Center, and The Rockefeller Foundation. He has been a gubernatorial appointee to the Empire State Stem Cell Commission and the Ethics Working Group of the HIV Prevention Trials Network and has served on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Research Ethics Advisory Panel. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a regular contributor to The New York Times, CNN, and Psychology Today.

Randy Cohen’s first professional work was writing humor pieces, essays, and stories for newspapers and magazines (The New Yorker, Harpers, the Atlantic, Young Love Comics). His first television work was writing for “Late Night With David Letterman” for which he won three Emmy awards. His fourth Emmy was for his work on Michael Moore’s “TV Nation.” He received a fifth Emmy as a result of a clerical error, and he kept it. For twelve years he wrote “The Ethicist,” a weekly column for the New York Times Magazine. In 2010, his first play, “The Punishing Blow,” ran at New York’s Clurman Theater. He is currently the creator and host of Person Place Thing, a public radio program.
To obtain additional information about program offerings at Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies, please contact an Admissions Counselor at inquire@sps.columbia.edu.
Registered guests must enter campus at WIEN GATE at 411 West 116h Street and allow additional time for campus access and event check-in. Guests who have not registered in advance and do not have an active Columbia University ID (CUID) will not be permitted on campus. Upon arrival at the gate, all registered guests must show:

Active CUID holders: a government-issued ID and active Columbia University ID
Non-CUID holders (including all Alumni): a government-issued ID and the QR code issued by CU Guest Access prior to the event. This QR code is valid only for this event and the name must match that on the guest’s government-issued ID.

Please email sps-events@columbia.edu with questions regarding campus access for this event.

Integrity in the Concept and Determination of Brain Death: Recent Challenges in Medicine, Law, and Ethics
2025-02-27 08:00 - 2025-02-28 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Inperson, 3640 Colonel Glenn Highway,, Dayton,, OH, 45435, United States
This symposium will address concerns posed by the American Academy of Neurology’s issuance of updated 2023 Guidelines after an unsuccessful effort to revise the Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA).
Participants will a unique opportunity to learn about, discuss, and strive to better address several key issues including:

How/Can we ensure, with moral certitude, that patients determined to be dead by neurologic criteria are dead according to the standards of a sound Christian anthropology and the law?
How/Can testing protocols for brain death be improved to accurately, consistently, and efficiently identify which patients are dead by neurologic criteria and which are not?
What challenges might be encountered and appropriately addressed if implementing more rigorous clinical standards and protocols results in some delay to the process of vital organ recovery?
What ethical measures and resources are required to better uphold key ethical goods including patient dignity, informed consent, and respect for conscience?

The symposium will feature leading scholars on the core clinical, anthropological, and ethical issues at stake and will feature plenty of time for dialogue.
This symposium shall be conducted to achieve fair representation of distinct positions, robust dialogue among participants, and practical results.

Ethics of End-of-Life Care: Contributions from the Arts and Humanities
2025-02-26 08:00 - 2025-03-02 17:00 (America/Chicago) | Piazza S. Calisto 16, Trastevere, Rome, Piazza S. Calisto 16,, Trastevere, Rome, Italy
Objective
Care for the dying and their loved ones is a most rewarding but also challenging endeavor. Such care can evoke complex moral questions that often defy standard methods of ethical analysis. In this seminar, we enter into dialogue with the arts and humanities to gain new insights about the human condition, find meaning in the final phase of life, and achieve a truly dignified death.
Approach
Whereas internationally renowned experts will introduce the themes, the core of this seminar will be a sustained discussion among all participants. Conversations will extend from the classroom to cultural excursions in the city of Rome and many shared meals. Participants are encouraged to prepare a short presentation to stimulate still more dialogue. Registration is limited to 20 persons. Combination with the Annual Conference of the Pontifical Academy for Life Immediately following the seminar, participants can attend the two-day annual conference of the Pontifical Academy for Life (3-4 March 2025). The specific topic of the 2025 meeting has yet to be announced. Attendance of this meeting may also include an opportunity to join in the Academyís private audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican (depending on his health and schedule).
Teaching Staff
Jos Welie, MA, MMedS, JD, PhD, President of the St. AndrÈ International Center for Ethics and Integrity (France) and Professor Emeritus of Medical Humanities (USA) (Seminar Director) Andrea Ciucci, PhD, Pontifical Academy for Life (Vatican City) Andrea De Santis, PhD, Dean of Philosophy, Ateneo SantíAnselmo (Italy) Alberto GarcÌa GÛmez, LLM, PhD, UNESCO Chair in Bioethics and Human Rights (Spain/Italy) Henk ten Have, MD, PhD, Professor of Health Care Ethics, Anuhuac University (Netherlands/Mexico) Willem Lemmens, PhD, Antwerp University (Belgium) Therese Lysaught, PhD, Professor, Loyola University Chicago (USA) Joseph Tham, M.D., PhD, APRA Rome (Italy) & Holy Spirit College (Hong Kong).

The Growth of Dental Ethics as a Discipline
2025-02-25 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Chicago) | Online
Please join us for this online event on February 25,2025
Speaker: David T. Ozar, Ph.D.
David T. Ozar, an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University Chicago, has made significant contribution to dental ethics through his teaching, founding of the American Society for Dental Ethics, and extensive work with dental schools and professional societies, while also authoring 153 ethics articles and three editions of “Dental Ethics at Chairside.”
His distinguished career has earned him numerous honors, including Honorary Fellowships from the American College of Dentists and the American College of Legal Medicine, as well as the American College of Dentists’ Ethics and Professionalism Award in 2018.
Learning Objectives:

Describe the main elements of the development of dental ethics as a discipline for teaching and learning since the 1980’s.
Examine whether the discipline of dental ethics is adequately addressing, in its teaching and learning, the reality that professional formation is a process of life-long self-formation.

DENTAL PROFESSIONALS CAN EARN 1ADA CERP CREDIT
University of Rochester, Eastman Institute for Oral Health is an ADA CERP Recognized Provider.
ADA CERP is a service of the American Dental Association to assist dental professionals in identifying quality providers of continuing dental education. ADA CERP does not approve or endorse individual courses or instructors, nor does it imply acceptance of credit hours by boards of dentistry.
Concerns or complains about a CE provider may be directed to the provider or to the Commission for Continuing Education Provider Recognition at ADA.org/CERP.

How Can a Patient Be Dead While Their Heart Still Beats? Addressing Ethical Challenges in the Determination of “Brain Death”/Death by Neurological Criteria
2025-02-25 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Chicago) | Online
The determination of a person’s death is an important process involving both medical and societal considerations. Controversy and confusion regarding the determination of death by neurologic criteria persist at the bedside, in the community, and within broader policy discussions. This leads to ethical dilemmas, narrative misunderstandings, and a lack of clarity that can result in both medical and moral harms. How can clinicians ensure death by neurologic criteria is determined ethically, accurately, and consistently? How should clinicians respond to patients’ and families’ unfamiliarity with the process of determining death? Specifically, how should clinicians approach the concept of death by neurological criteria when patients and families may not be aware of, or open to the concept? This session will review prevailing legal and medical standards for determining death, and offer practical strategies for how to ethically approach conflict when death by neurological criteria is at issue.
Learning Objectives: After this webinar, attendees will be able to:

Describe the social importance of the meaning and determination of death, and the two current legal standards for the determination of death, either: 1) Circulatory or, 2) Brain Death/Death by Neurological Criteria.
Describe the procedures for the determination of death by neurological criteria.
Identify strategies to address common ethical issues that arise in the determination of death by neurological criteria.

Speaker(s)

Margy McCullough-Hicks, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at the University of Minnesota and Affiliate Faculty at the Institute for Health Informatics. She is a vascular neurologist specializing in cerebrovascular disease and stroke neuroimaging and has a strong interest in clinical and research ethics. Dr. McCullough-Hicks earned her BA in Philosophy from Columbia University and her MD from Georgetown University. She completed a Neurology residency at Yale and a Vascular Neurology fellowship at Stanford. She is a member of the UMN Department of Neurology Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee, the University of Minnesota Medical Center Ethics Committee, and the American Academy of Neurology Ethics, Law, and Humanities Committee.
Joel Wu, JD, MPH, MA, HEC-C, is a Center for Bioethics Clinical Ethics Assistant Professor and a senior lecturer in the Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health. He is a co-chair of the University of Minnesota Medical Center’s Ethics Committee, co-lead for the clinical ethics consultation service for MHealth Fairview system hospitals, and member of the MHealth Fairview Ethics Council. Professor Wu earned his BS in Biochemistry, Genetics and Cell Biology, and Microbiology, and his MPH in Epidemiology from the University of Minnesota, and his Masters in Bioethics and JD from Case Western Reserve University. He completed fellowships in Bioethics and Professionalism at the Mayo Clinic and in Clinical Ethics and Children’s Minnesota and Abbott Northwestern Hospital. He is a member of the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network Ethics Committee.

A REFUTATION
2025-02-21 19:00 - 2025-02-22 16:30 (America/New_York) | Hybrid, PA
The Greenwall Foundation’s 75th anniversary in 2024 gave us the opportunity to share stories of the people and events that have shaped the Foundation’s course and inspire our future. The celebration continues into early 2025 with our capstone 75th anniversary event: two Greenwall Foundation-commissioned performances of A REFUTATION, with Theater of War Productions, that will be hosted in Washington, DC, and webcast live on February 21 and 22.
A REFUTATION, directed, adapted, and facilitated by Theater of War’s Bryan Doerries, will feature dramatic readings by acclaimed actors from conflicting historical accounts of Philadelphia’s 1793 yellow fever epidemic and spark guided audience discussions on America’s current health inequities.
The cast features Chad Coleman (The Walking Dead, The Wire), Brían F. O’Byrne (Conclave, Million Dollar Baby), Michael Potts (The Wire, The Piano Lesson), and Peter Marks (former chief theater critic for The Washington Post).
“These performances are an exceptional way to mark the Foundation’s anniversary,” said Michelle Groman, JD, President & CEO. “They draw from the Foundation’s past commitment to arts funding, remain grounded in our current bioethics focus, and look toward the future by bringing bioethics to new audiences through a less traditional medium.”
The DC Public Library and Ebenezer United Methodist Church-Capitol Hill are partners and hosts of the two events.
February 21, 2025
7:00 pm – 9:30 pm EST
Ebenezer United Methodist Church
400 D Street SE
Register here
February 22, 2025
2:00 pm – 4:30 pm EST
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library
901 G Street NW
Register here

Healing through Medicine and Prayer
2025-02-20 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Hybrid, PA
The modern world faces religious, spiritual and existential quandaries, as new technologies redefine the beginnings and ends of life.
Join Dr. Robert Klitzman and Rabbi David Ingber as they share stories about the spiritual lives of patients and explores the role of chaplains — who they are, what they do and the challenges they face.
In Person & Online
Online Tickets starting at $18
In-Person Tickets starting at $18

Applying for Health Humanities Jobs Beyond Academia
2025-02-20 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | Online
Our esteemed panelists will draw on their experiences as scholars who obtained post-graduate training in the health humanities before transitioning into industry, nonprofit, and/or administrative work to provide advice and insight for job seekers.
We will reserve plenty of time for Q&A with the panelists, so please come with your questions big and small!
In addition to the Zoom link for live attendance, registrants will receive a video recording of the panel and a free copy of Journeying from Academia to Industry: A Guidebook for PhDs by Allyson Wierenga, MA.
Panelists:
Olivia Banner, PhD. Director of Strategy & Operations, Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology & Experiences, University of Washington

Emily Dufton, PhD. Author & Public Scholar

Diane M. Korngiebel, DPhil. AI Principles Ethicist and ELSI Scholar, Responsible Innovation Google

Nicole Robinson, MFA. Poet & Narrative Medicine Coordinator, Akron Children’s Hospital

Questions: Contact Brianna C. August-Rae, Ph.D. (cusanno@etsu.edu) or Liz Bowen, Ph.D. (bowenel@upstate.edu)

Ethics Case Conference: "Is the MOLST Valid? Is the Patient Refusing? Ethics Amidst Unclear Goals of Care"
2025-02-20 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Online
With Daniel Kim, PhD, MPH & Christen Paradissis, PhD
Dr. Kim received a PhD in Religious Ethics from the University of Chicago and an MPH in Social and Behavioral Sciences from Yale University. He was a 2021-22 fellow of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago. His research examines ethical issues by attending to basic questions of self, community, and culture, specifically issues in clinical moral distress, end-of -life care, ethics education, health justice, and religion and medicine. His recent works have been published in the Hasting Center Report, American Journal of Bioethics, Journal of Religion and Health, Journal of Intensive Care Medicine, and Teaching and Learning in Medicine.
Dr. Paradissis is a clinical ethics fellow at the Alden March Bioethics Institute. She obtained a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Utah in 2024. In addition to her doctoral work, Dr. Paradissis has served as a writing panel member for the American Nurses Association’s 2024 revision of the Code of Ethics, was a nursing ethics intern at the Cleveland Clinic in 2021 and practiced a registered nurse from 2016-2019. Dr. Paradissis’ research focuses on the ethics of trust, betrayal, and blame in tripartite relationships in the health care setting, as well as discerning the boundaries of professional practice. She is interested in thinking about the role health care institutions play in setting expectations of trust between nurses and patients, about how breakdowns in trust occur when nurses, patients, and institutions blame one another, and about what practices of blame between such parties are morally permissible.
Please join us! There will be plenty of time for questions afterwards!

Learn More About Columbia's M.S. in Bioethics Program from Distinguished Faculty
2025-02-19 06:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Online
Join us for this session in which distinguished Bioethics faculty will provide you with insight into the Bioethics program and answer any questions you may have about the courses they lead at Columbia University.

2025 Healthcare in a Civil Society: Who Will Care for Us? Quality, Access and Ethical Integrity in the Future of Primary Care
2025-02-15 08:00 - 13:00 (America/Chicago) | Inperson, 3640 Colonel Glenn Highway,, Dayton,, OH, 45435, United States
In an era of rapid transformation in healthcare we must ask who will be caring for us 10 years from now? What will the future of primary care look like? Will it be high quality? Will it be accessible to vulnerable populations? Will it be provided with ethical integrity?
Healthcare in a Civil Society 2025 will address the pressing issues facing the healthcare system, especially in the delivery of primary care. This engaging event features an internationally recognized content expert and an expert panel as we seek to explore the evolving landscape of primary care and discuss strategies for ensuring that the system remains both effective and equitable.
This symposium will examine the important elements of a healthcare system – quality of care, access to services, and ethical integrity – through a keynote presentation and panel discussion. To do this we will explore the future of the primary care workforce, the barriers to providing equitable access to healthcare services and innovations that can help to alleviate the workforce problem and bridge the gaps in care. Key topics will include the impact of technological advancements on care delivery, the importance of maintaining high standards amidst increasing demand, and the ethical consideration of balancing patient needs with resource constraints.
Participants will gain insights into innovative models of care that are reshaping the primary care environment, such as patient-centered medical homes and integrated care systems. Discussions will also focus on strategies to improve access for underserved populations and ensure that all patients receive equitable, high-quality care.
The event aims to foster a collaborative dialogue among healthcare providers, policymakers, and community leaders to develop actionable solutions and forward-thinking policies. By addressing these critical issues, “Who Will Care for Us?” aspires to pave the way for a more resilient and ethically sound primary care system that is prepared to meet the needs of future generations.
Registration cost is $25
Registration cost with CE credit is $40
Registration cost for full/part time students is $10 (ID will be required at check-in)
Target Audience

This program is open to all healthcare professionals who work in primary care, healthcare institutions and academia. Full-time and part-time students are welcome and will receive a discounted rate.
Learning Objectives

At the conclusion of this activity, participants should be able to:

Summarize the evolution of primary care delivery and the trajectory in which it is headed;
Discuss who the primary care providers of the future will be and how primary care will be delivered;
Explain the barriers patients experience in accessing primary care, particularly for underserved populations, and how that may change in the future;
Evaluate the role of technology to enhance access and quality in primary care and the impact it will have on primary care delivery;
Examine the ethical frameworks that guide decision-making in primary care settings, focusing on patient-centered care;
Discuss the importance of teamwork among healthcare professionals in delivering comprehensive primary care; and
Describe potential future challenges in primary care delivery and brainstorm strategies to ensure ethical integrity and quality care for all patients

Keynote Speaker: Nancy Dickey, MD. President Emeritus, Texas A&M, Health Science Center
Dr. Nancy W. Dickey is a past president of the American Medical Association and past chair of the AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs. She currently serves as a professor in the Department of Primary Care and Population Health and the Department of Medical Humanities in the College of Medicine and as a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the School of Public Health, Texas A&M Health Science Center.
FEATURING: Tracy Hicks, DNP, MBA, President-Elect, Texas Nurse Practitioners Frank Lonergan, MD, MSW, Medical Director, Tarrant County Jail Diversion Program Jo Tilley, DNP, Director of Nursing Practice, Cook Children’s Medical Center Stuart Pickell, MD, MDiv, Ethics Theme Lead at TCU Burnett School of Medicine
Moderator: The Honorable Pete Geren, JD. President & CEO, Sid Richardson Foundation
For more information visit: https://ce.unthsc.edu/content/2025-healthcare-civil-society-who-will-care-us-quality-access-and-ethical-integrity-future#group-tabs-node-course-default1

ELSI Friday Forum: Building Infrastructures to Enhance Community Engagement Work
2025-02-14 11:00 (America/Chicago) | Online
This ELSI Friday Forum is co-hosted with The Broad Institute. Community engagement is increasingly seen as a necessary component of genetic and genomic research. One major rationale for community engaged genetic research is to assure that benefits of research are aligned with community needs and goals. Assuring broad benefits also requires broad representation in genetic and genomic research participant populations. Organizations such as the American Society for Human Genetics have put forward guidance to advance community-engaged research, which was aimed at the scientific community. However, there are structural barriers to the advancement of community-engaged research that may require the action of institutions such as scientific journals, research funders, and academic research organizations. This session will address ways that structural and systemic factors can lower barriers to effective community engagement in genetic and genomic research.
Panelists: Ishita Das, PhD, PMP; Alycia Halladay, PhD; and Celia van der Merwe, PhD.
Moderator: Heini Natri, PhD.

Contact Email: info@elsihub.org
Registration Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dw1MMk8NSeiX08gNIMYRsA#/registration

The Carceral Hospital: Race, Birth, and Imagining a Different World of Health
2025-02-13 17:00 - 18:00 (America/New_York) | Online
Along with social determinants, the hospital as an institution must also be examined for its role in poor Black infant and maternal health outcomes worldwide. With the US and the African diaspora as her dual focus, Collins argues hospitals must be held accountable for their demand for the literal and financial incarceration of Black mothers who cannot afford safe and attentive healthcare. With a reproductive justice orientation to bioethical practice, she invites audience members to imagine a future where hospital-accrued debt is no longer a factor in poor Black maternal health outcomes.
About Mali Collins, PhD: Mali Collins’ research areas include Black motherhood studies, Black archival studies, 20th and 21st century literature and art, medical humanities, digital technology, and reproductive health and justice. She is a practicing birth, postpartum, and pregnancy termination doula, and a trained Perinatal and Infant Loss advocate with The Womb Room in Baltimore, MD. Prior to joining the CRGC, she was an Assistant Professor of African American Literature in the English department at Howard University. Dr. Collins was also an NEH NextGeneration PhD Fellow with the African American Public Humanities Initiative at the University of Delaware. She has been the recipient of many awards and fellowships from Imagining America Institute, the National Endowment of Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, and the American Association of University Women. Her dissertation project won the Ida B. Wells Award from the Coordinating Council on Women and History and its third chapter won the Women of Color Caucus Graduate Essay Award from the National Women’s Studies Association. She was most recently an Errin J. Vuley Fellow with the Feminist Women’s Health Center in Atlanta, GA.
Dr. Collins is currently preparing her book manuscript, Scrap Theory: Reproductive Injustice in the Black Feminist Imagination (under contract, OSU Press 2024) which creates new methodologies to investigate contemporary formations of Black maternal dispossession within the confines of radical documentation and archiving. Dr. Collins has published and has forthcoming work in the peer-reviewed journals: American Quarterly, Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Society, and Culture, National Political Science Review, Frontiers, and The Black Scholar. She has published on popular mediums such as The Feminist Wire, b*tch! Magazine, TheRoot.com, AfroPunk.com, has forthcoming articles on TruthOut.comand The Hastings Center’s online journal. Her creative poems and short stories have been published in SALT: Contemporary Art + Feminism, The HAUNT Journal of Art, and an autobiographical book chapter will be published by Demeter Press in 2022. She is on the founding editorial committee for a new journal on Black Studies and Bioethics.

2025 Black History Month Event: The Carceral Hospital: Race, Birth, and Imagining a Different World of Health
2025-02-13 17:00 - 18:00 (America/New_York) | Online
Along with social determinants, the hospital as an institution must also be examined for its role in poor Black infant and maternal health outcomes worldwide. With the US and the African diaspora as her dual focus, Collins argues hospitals must be held accountable for their demand for the literal and financial incarceration of Black mothers who cannot afford safe and attentive healthcare. With a reproductive justice orientation to bioethical practice, she invites audience members to imagine a future where hospital-accrued debt is no longer a factor in poor Black maternal health outcomes.
About Mali Collins, PhD
Mali Collins’ research areas include Black motherhood studies, Black archival studies, 20th and 21st century literature and art, medical humanities, digital technology, and reproductive health and justice. She is a practicing birth, postpartum, and pregnancy termination doula, and a trained Perinatal and Infant Loss advocate with The Womb Room in Baltimore, MD. Prior to joining the CRGC, she was an Assistant Professor of African American Literature in the English department at Howard University. Dr. Collins was also an NEH NextGeneration PhD Fellow with the African American Public Humanities Initiative at the University of Delaware. She has been the recipient of many awards and fellowships from Imagining America Institute, the National Endowment of Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, and the American Association of University Women. Her dissertation project won the Ida B. Wells Award from the Coordinating Council on Women and History and its third chapter won the Women of Color Caucus Graduate Essay Award from the National Women’s Studies Association. She was most recently a Errin J. Vuley Fellow with the Feminist Women’s Health Center in Atlanta, GA.
Dr. Collins is currently preparing her book manuscript, Scrap Theory: Reproductive Injustice in the Black Feminist Imagination (under contract, OSU Press 2024) which creates new methodologies to investigate contemporary formations of Black maternal dispossession within the confines of radical documentation and archiving. Dr. Collins has published and has forthcoming work in the peer-reviewed journals: American Quarterly, Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Society, and Culture, National Political Science Review, Frontiers, and The Black Scholar. She has published on popular mediums such as The Feminist Wire, b*tch! Magazine, TheRoot.com, AfroPunk.com, has forthcoming articles on TruthOut.com and The Hastings Center’s online journal. Her creative poems and short stories have been published in SALT: Contemporary Art + Feminism, The HAUNT Journal of Art, and an autobiographical book chapter will be published by Demeter Press in 2022. She is on the founding editorial committee for a new journal on Black Studies and Bioethics.

Ethics Grand Rounds: Ethical Considerations for Responding to Cultural/Religious Limitations on Patient Autonomy
2025-02-13 12:00 - 13:30 (America/Denver) | Online
This live virtual event will feature a compelling discussion led by Jordan Potter, PhD, HEC-C, Director of Ethics at Community Health Network in the Indianapolis, IN metropolitan area.
Learning Objectives:
1. Identify common cultural- or religious-based values that conflict with the conception of individual-based patient autonomy and decision-making.
2. Recognize the ethical complexities of addressing family requests to limit patient autonomy and decision-making.
3. Describe practical strategies for communicating with patients about any cultural- or religious-based values that may impact their preferences for decision-making and information sharing.
CME Credits will be offered for live participation. The University of Colorado School of Medicine designates this live activity for a maximum of 1 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™.
Registration is required to attend. Click here to register!
For additional information or questions, please contact Gianna Morales .

Assessing the value of patient data: A qualitative exploration of hospital/industry data partnerships
2025-02-12 17:30 - 18:30 (America/Chicago) | Hybrid, PA
The Master of Bioethics Program at the University of Pennsylvania invites you to join us for our next MBE/MSME Alumni Colloquium speaker Kayte Spector-Bagdady, JD, PhD, MBE
BIO: Kayte Spector-Bagdady is health law and bioethics faculty at the University of Michigan Medical School where she also co-leads the Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine. She is an Associate Editor of the American Journal of Bioethics and is on the new National Academies’ Congressionally-mandated committee on newborn screening. She is the current PI of $3M in NIH funding towards improving the governance of research and AI/ML use of health data, and her recent articles have been published in The New England Journal of Medicine, Science, and JAMA among others. Prof. Spector is a former practicing FDA law attorney; Associate Director for President Obama’s Bioethics Commission; and Chair of the American Heart Association’s Committee on data collection, sharing, and use. She graduated with a JD and MBe from the University of Pennsylvania.
Click here to register! (Please note: the Zoom session will open at 5:00 PM, but the talk will not begin until 5:15 PM. Attendees will be in a waiting room until the talk starts.)

CEHV and University Libraries present a CARE Panel: The Ethics of Social Media Data in Research
2025-02-12 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York) | Online
For this CARE panel, we explore who owns social media data, who should have access to it for research purposes, and who should get to decide. This event is part of “Love Data Week,” an international celebration of research data. The theme this year is “Whose Data Is It, Anyway?” Join University Libraries in-person or online for resources, workshops and speakers that highlight the ethics and practicalities of data created by and for people. Find the full schedule here.
Featuring Panelists:
Casey Fiesler, PhD (Associate Professor of Information Science, University of Colorado-Boulder)
Erin Moore, PhD (Dr. Carl F. Asseff Assistant Professor of Anthropology and the History of Medicine, OSU)
Annie Specht, PhD, MS (Associate Professor of Agricultural Communication, OSU)

This event will be presented with automated closed captions. If you wish to request traditional CART services or other accommodations, please contact Layne Garrelts at garrelts.6@osu.edu. Requests made by 10 days prior to this event will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the university will make every effort to meet requests made after this date.

Navigating the Ethical Landscape of Medical Aid in Dying: Emerging Challenges and Future
2025-02-11 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Hybrid, PA
In this session, guest speaker Yvette Vieira, MMH, HEC-C, joins Division of Ethics Chief Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, PhD, to discuss the ethical implications of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD). Lunch will be provided after in the VEC lobby.
Abstract: Medical aid in dying (MAiD) is legal in 11 US jurisdictions, with 19 additional states considering legislation. If successful, nearly 50% of the population would have access to this end-of-life option. This discussion will overview the US landscape and laws before addressing contentious ethical challenges: Do institutional policies restricting MAiD participation create barriers to autonomous end-of-life choices and perpetuate healthcare disparities? Is it ethical for patients to access MAiD through Voluntary Stopping of Eating and Drinking for non-terminal conditions? Should those with significant psychiatric conditions access MAiD without a terminal diagnosis? Yvette Vieira will explore the importance of healthcare ethics in these evolving issues.
Ethics Grand Rounds is a series organized by the Division of Ethics in the Department of Medical Humanities & Ethics. The goal of Ethics Grand Rounds is to engage our community of health professionals, scholars, scientists and trainees across career stages and disciplines by elevating important topics and debates in medical ethics that relate to clinical practice, research, implementation, and education.
Event Contact Information:
David Lamb
dl3580@cumc.columbia.edu

Conflict Resolution and Clinical-Setting Mediation for Healthcare
2025-02-10 08:00 - 2025-02-13 17:00 (America/Chicago) | Online
Conflict in healthcare endangers patients, distresses families, disrupts the workplace, fuels burnout and sparks ethical conundrums. Resolving conflicts peacefully and durably helps preserve relationships and avoid dis-integration.
“Conflict Resolution and Clinical-Setting Mediation for Healthcare” is a learn-by-doing training enabling clinical-setting professionals – – bioethicists, physicians, nurses, legal counsel, administrators, chaplains, social workers, ethics committee members, and others – – to provide a wide range of assistance, from coaching, to informal negotiation and facilitation, to mediation.
This training is online for 4 days, with limited enrollment to ensure a fully intimate and engaging experience.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact Haavi Morreim (h-morreim@comcast.net)

Ethics for Lunch: Can You Turn My LVAD Off? I Want to Die
2025-02-07 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Hybrid, PA
Please join us for a fascinating in person and online presentation and discussion of the following case:
Patients have a legal right to discontinue life-sustaining treatment, but what if they are suicidal? We will consider the case of a man who attempted to disconnect the power source to his own heart device.
Location:
This is a hybrid event and will be hosted both in person at CUIMC and via Zoom. This event will be held at the Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Rooms VEC 902 and 903. Lunch will be provided for those choosing to attend in person.
Speaker:
Lydia Dugdale, MD, MAR (ethics), is the Dorothy L. and Daniel H. Silberberg Professor of Medicine at the Columbia University Medical Center and Director of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. She also serves as Co-Director of Clinical Ethics at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
A practicing internist, Dr Dugdale moved to Columbia in 2019 from Yale University, where she previously served as Associate Director of the Program for Biomedical Ethics. Her scholarship focuses on end-of-life issues, the role of aesthetics in teaching ethics, moral injury, and the doctor-patient relationship. She edited Dying in the Twenty-First Century (MIT Press, 2015) and is author of The Lost Art of Dying (HarperOne, 2020), a popular press book on the preparation for death. Dr Dugdale attended medical school at the University of Chicago, completed residency training at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and holds a MAR in ethics from Yale Divinity School.
Moderated by: Barbra Bluestone Rothschild, MD, Core Faculty, Bioethics Program, Columbia University
Registered guests will receive a Zoom link prior to the event.
For further information, please contact Katherine Julia Mendis at kjm2148@columbia.edu

Ethics for Lunch: Can You Turn My LVAD Off? I Want to Die
2025-02-07 13:00 - 14:00 (America/Chicago) | Hybrid, PA
Please join us for a fascinating in person and online presentation and discussion of the following case:
Patients have a legal right to discontinue life-sustaining treatment, but what if they are suicidal? We will consider the case of a man who attempted to disconnect the power source to his own heart device.
Location:
This is a hybrid event and will be hosted both in person at CUIMC and via Zoom. This event will be held at the Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Rooms VEC 902 and 903. Lunch will be provided for those choosing to attend in person.
Speaker:
Lydia Dugdale, MD, MAR (ethics), is the Dorothy L. and Daniel H. Silberberg Professor of Medicine at the Columbia University Medical Center and Director of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. She also serves as Co-Director of Clinical Ethics at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
A practicing internist, Dr Dugdale moved to Columbia in 2019 from Yale University, where she previously served as Associate Director of the Program for Biomedical Ethics. Her scholarship focuses on end-of-life issues, the role of aesthetics in teaching ethics, moral injury, and the doctor-patient relationship. She edited Dying in the Twenty-First Century (MIT Press, 2015) and is author of The Lost Art of Dying (HarperOne, 2020), a popular press book on the preparation for death. Dr Dugdale attended medical school at the University of Chicago, completed residency training at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and holds a MAR in ethics from Yale Divinity School.
Moderated by: Barbra Bluestone Rothschild, MD, Core Faculty, Bioethics Program, Columbia University
Registered guests will receive a Zoom link prior to the event.
For further information, please contact Katherine Julia Mendis at kjm2148@columbia.edu.
For additional information about program offerings at Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies, please contact an Admissions Counselor at 212-854-9666 or inquire@sps.columbia.edu.
Columbia University makes every effort to accommodate individuals with disabilities. Please notify the Office of Disability Services at least 10 days in advance if you require closed captioning, sign-language interpretation, or any other disability accommodations. Disability Services can be reached at 212-854-2388 or disability@columbia.edu.
For questions about health and safety, please visit Columbia University’s Hub for Emergency Preparedness for the latest policies, as they are subject to change.
Please note we do not permit the interruption of speakers or audience disruptions. All guests including students, staff, faculty, and alumni attending the event understand and agree to follow the responsibilities set forth in University policies, including the Rules of University Conduct and Standards and Discipline. Those found in violation will be asked to discontinue and may be asked to leave the venue.

Environmental Injustice: The Clinical and Ethical Implications of Our Unhealthy Environments
2025-02-07 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Chicago) | Online
Our health is largely determined by our social environments and that includes our physical environments. Our health is directly impacted by the location of oil and gas facilities, the amount of plastics and carcinogens in our drinking water and the air we breathe, and the number of yearly natural disasters. Furthermore, not all people are equally affected by these environmental factors. People of color, those with low incomes, the young and the old, and those with chronic illness are affected more by unhealthy environments. In this presentation, I discuss these realities of environmental injustice by demonstrating the clinical and ethical implications of our unhealthy environments. I discuss the ethical decisions about health equity and class and racial disparities in health that environmental injustices forces us to make and how they affect the number of clinical interventions available to remedy our poor health.
Learning Objectives: After this webinar, attendees will be able to:

Discuss the effects of unhealthy environments on our health
Define environmental injustice
Discuss the ethical choices about our health we must make given the status of our environment’s health
Discuss the connection between clinical decisions and our health
Explore samples of environmental injustice

Speaker(s)

Keisha Ray, PhD, received her PhD in philosophy from the University of Utah. She is currently a tenured Associate Professor and holds the John P. McGovern, MD Professorship of Oslerian Medicine at the McGovern Center for Humanities & Ethics at UT Health Houston, where she also serves as the Director of the Medical Humanities Scholarly Concentration. Most of Dr. Ray’s work focuses on the effects of institutional racism on Black people’s health, highlighting Black people’s own stories, and the sociopolitical implications of biomedical enhancement. Her work uniquely prioritizes linguistic justice as a matter of access and commitment to public scholarship. Dr. Ray serves as an associate editor for the American Journal of Bioethics and its online site, “Bioethics Today” as well as Senior Associate Editor for the Journal of Medical Humanities. Dr. Ray has also been elected as a Hastings Center Fellow. She has contributed to top clinical, bioethics, and medical humanities journals. And based on her expertise, Dr. Ray is frequently called upon as a bioethics expert for popular news sources. Lastly, Dr. Ray is the author of the book “Black Health: The Social, Political, and Cultural Determinants of Black People’s Health” with Oxford University Press.

“The Occasional Human Sacrifice: Medical Experimentation and the Price of Saying No”
2025-02-06 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Chicago) | Online
The Occasional Human Sacrifice is an intellectual inquiry into the moral struggle that whistleblowers face, and why it is not the kind of struggle that most people imagine.
Dr. Carl Elliot, MD, PhD
Dr. Carl Elliot Carl Elliott is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota.
Thursday, February 6th, 12:00 – 1:00 PM CT, A Zoom Presentation

Ethics Grand Rounds: “Ethical Issues in Using Artificial Intelligence in Research and Scholarly Writing”
2025-02-06 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Online
Speaker: David Resnik, JD, PhD – Bioethicist, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Dr. Resnik is a Bioethicist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), National Institutes of Health (NIH). Prior to joining the NIEHS in 2004, Dr. Resnik was a Professor of Medical Humanities at the Broody School of Medicine at East Carolina University from 1998 to 2004 and a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wyoming (UW) from 1990 to 1998. Dr. Resnik also directed the Center for the Advancement of Ethics at UW from 1995 to 1998. Dr. Resnik was Chair of the NIEHS Institutional Review Board (IRB) from 2008 to 2019 and is currently a member of the NIH-wide IRB. Dr. Resnik has been a member of the NIH Committee on Scientific Conduct and Ethics since 2004 and was named Senior Advisor for Research Integrity in the NIH’s Office of Intramural Research in 2002. Dr. Resnik has an MA and PhD in Philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a JD from Concord University School of Law (not part of Purdue University), and a BA in Philosophy from Davidson College. He published over 300 articles and 10 books on ethical, social, legal, and philosophical issues in science, technology, and medicine; is an Associate Editor of the journal Accountability in Research; and a Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Talk Description: Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the nature of research and scholarly writing. Although the use of AI offers many benefits to scientific research and academic scholarship, it also creates ethical challenges concerning bias, authorship, transparency, accountability, and public trust. This talk will examine some of the ethical issues raised by using artificial intelligence in scientific research and scholarly writing and discuss some proposed solutions.

McGovern Center 20th Anniversary Event with Erin Gentry Lamb: "Health Humanities: Looking Backward, Sideways, and Forward"
2025-02-05 18:00 - 19:30 (America/Chicago) | Online
This talk will explore the diverse stories we tell about the field of health humanities — how it came to be, who it serves, and what it does — in order to envision possible forward-looking stories for the field.
Erin Gentry Lamb, PhD, the immediate past Co-President of the Health Humanities Consortium, is the Carl F. Asseff, MD, MBA, JD, Professor in Medical Humanities at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine where she directs the Humanities Pathway for medical students and the baccalaureate minor in Bioethics and Medical Humanities.

ELSIconversations: Defining Benefit in Genomics Research
2025-01-31 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Online
Defining Benefit in Genomics Research: How are investigators and communities maximizing opportunities for benefit sharing and what are the challenges? This is session one of the two-part Pioneering Sustainable and Beneficial Global Genomics Research Capacity series.
Speakers:

María C. Ávila Arcos, Coordinator of the International Laboratory for Human Genome Research (LIIGH-UNAM)
Maanasa Raghavan, PhD, Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Human Genetics
Shawneequa Callier, J.D., M.A, (Moderator) Assistant Professor, George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS)

This ELSIconversations series is a partnership between the Center for Research on Genomics and Global Health (CRGGH) and the Center for ELSI Resources and Analysis (CERA).
Registration Link
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/1417364545080/WN_8P-Ba4aaRUywXVTKV5EitA
