Center for Clinical Ethics and Humanities in Health Care
Bioethics Bulletin
Editor: Tim Madigan
November 1995
Volume Two, Number Eleven
Co-Directors: Gerald Logue, MD and Stephen Wear, PhD
Secretary: Lisa Bolton
Address:
The Center for Clinical Ethics and Humanities in Health Care
VAMC
3495 Bailey Avenue
Buffalo, New York 14215
Telephone: 862-3412
FAX: 8624748
E-mail sent to Lisa Bolten
LBolten@ubmedc.buffalo.edu.
Newsletter Distribution
The Center newsletter can be delivered to you via e-mail or fax. If you
would like to receive the newsletter over the Internet, please forward
your request to Jack Freer
JFreer@ubmedb.buffalo.edu. If you would like to receive it by fax,
call Lisa Bolten at 862-3412 and tell her your fax number.
We encourage the use of e-mail and fax distribution rather
than paper for the newsletter.Please let us know if there are any people
you would like to have placed on our mailing list.
Upcoming Center Meetings
Community Affairs Committee Grand Rounds
The Community Affairs Committee sponsors an ongoing series of bioethics
grand rounds at area hospitals on a monthly basis. All Center members
are encouraged to attend.
Wednesday, November 29, 7:30 AM. Our Lady of Victory Hospital, 55
Melroy at Ridge Road, Lackawanna. Hospital Board Room. "Ethical Issues
Related to Guardianship: Case Review and Discussion." For further
information, call M.B. Farruggio at 825-8000.
Center Reading Group
The Center has established a second reading and research group (beyond
the "Health Care Policy Group"), the purpose of which is to discuss in-
progress publications and encourage new publications amd allied
research activities.
The first work to be discussed is Stephen Wear's book Informed
Consent: Patient Autonomy and Physician Beneficence Within Clinical
Medicine. The book, published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1993,
will be going into its second edition, and Wear is interested in
receiving comments and suggestions. Meetings in November will be held
on Wednesday the 8th and Wednesday the 29th, at 4 PM, at
the Center for Inquiry, 1310 Sweet Home Road, between Maple and Rensch
Roads in Amherst. Look for the twin red-and-white gates. If you plan to
attend, please contact Chuck Jack
jackubphil@aol.com
at 862-3412. He will send you a copy
of the first four chapters. Also let him know if you are interested in
attending future reading group meetings.
Bioethics Seminar
Philip Ehrlich, a first year medical student at SUNY-Buffalo, has
initiated, with the aid of some of his colleagues and Center staff, a
lunch-time bioethics seminar series. The first seminar will be
conducted by Dr. Robert Milch, Medical Director of Hospice Buffalo. The
topic will be "Ethical Issues In Hospice Care", and it will occur at 12
Noon in Butler Auditorium at the Medical School on Friday, November 11.
All Center members are invited to attend.
Upcoming Lectures
Wednesday, November 8. Mark Siegler, Professor, Department of Medicine
and Director, MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, University of
Chicago, will give the third annual Alloway Lecture at the Toronto
Hospital (General Division), Main Lecture Theater, Norman Urquart Wing,
200 Elizabeth Street, Ground Floor, Room 113, Toronto. 4:00 - 5:00 PM.
The title of his presentation is "Clinical Ethics: Its Contribution To
Patient Care."
Friday, November 10. The Center for Bioethics at the University of
Pennsylvania Medical Center in Philadelphia will host a conference on
"Informed Consent: Who Really Decides?' For information, contact Helen
DiCaprio, The Center for Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania, PA
19104-3308; or call 215-573-9378.
Wednesday, November 15. Medical Historical Society of Western New
York's first sesquicentennial dinner/lecture meeting. 6:00 P.M. "From
Medical School to University: A Slide Tour of the University at
Buffalo's Multilayered Past." Shonnie Finnegan, University Archivist
Emeritus, University at Buffalo. University Inn & Conference Center,
2401 N. Forest Road, Amherst. For reservations, contact Linda Lohr at
829-3402.
Saturday, November 18. "We're In This Together: Supporting and
Nurturing Each Other." Presenter: Vice Evans, MSW. HIV Grand Rounds -
Sponsored by the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University
at Buffalo through the Immunodeficiency Services and Life Transitions
Center, an affiliate of Hospice of Buffalo, Inc. Held at Erie County
Medical Center, Smith Auditorium (third floor), 9:00 AM -10:00 AM. This
program has been approved for 1.0 hour of AMA/PRA Category 1 credit.
For further information, contact Lori Berds at 898-4119.
Wednesday, November 29. "Doctors are Evil - Part I and Part II."
Presenter: Dr. C.O. Granai, Brown University. City-Wide Grand Rounds -
Sponsored by the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University
at Buffalo through the Department of Gynecology/Obstetrics. Held at
Erie County Medical Center, 3rd Floor Amphitheater, 9:15 AM and 10:35
AM. Approved for 1.0 hours of AMA/PRA Category 1 credit. Contact Patty
Korta at 898-3656 for further information.
Fall 1996 Sesquicentennial Conference
A symposium on Ethics and
Values in Medicine and the Biomedical Sciences will be held in conjunction
with the UB School of Medicine and Biological Science's sesquicentennial,
November 14-16, 1996. There are three main themes for the symposium:
1.) The Human Genome Project
2.) The Dilemma of Funding Health-Care: Technology, Resources, and
Priorities
3.) The Physician-Patient Relationship.
There will also be a final session devoted to open-ended discussion of
issues raised at previous sessions. Further information on the symposium
will be given in upcoming Bioethics Bulletins.
Call for Papers
As part of a comprehensive research project into Canadian codes of
ethics, York University Centre for Practical Ethics is co-sponsoring
with the Canadian Society for Practical Ethics a day-long conference on
research ethics, at the Learned Societies Conference, to be held May
27-29, 1996 at Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario. Papers on the
following topics will be welcomed: fraud and falsification of research
data and results, plagiarism, intellectual property, research with
human subjects, research on human fetuses and embryos, research using
animals, conflict of interest, misuse of research funds, ethics of
hiring and promotion, enforcing research morality. Please submit 3
copies of papers with abstracts to: Dan MacNiven, Director, Centre for
Practical Ethics, 102 McLaughlin College, York University, 4700 Keele
Street, North York, Ontario M3J 1P3; phone 416-736-5238, ext. 30446;
fax 416-736-5436; e-mail
praceth@nexus.yorku.ca. Deadline: proposals
for papers, November 15th; completed conference papers, January 15,
1996.
Conference on Value Inquiry: Inherent and Instrumental Values. The 24th
Conference on Value Inquiry will be held at D'Youville College, April
18-20, 1996. Broad participation is sought. Papers and abstracts of
papers that address issues concerning inherent and instrumental values
are welcome. Early submission is advised. Papers may be practically or
theoretically oriented. Treatment of the topic may be disciplinary and
address arguments within a single field of value inquiry such as
ethics, law, politics, aesthetics, health care, business, or education.
Papers may also be interdisciplinary and examine inherent and
instrumental values from two or more fields of inquiry. A selection of
papers presented at the conference will be considered for publication.
Contact: John Abbarno, Coordinator, 24th Conference on Value Inquiry,
Dept. of Philosophy, D'Youville College, 320 Porter Avenue, Buffalo,
New York, 14201. Telephone: 716-881-3200, extension 6540. Fax: 716-881-
7760.
The Society for Health and Human Values invites papers of no more than
12 pages for its 1996 Spring Meeting, "Stories and Their Limits:
Putting The Ethics Into Narrative Ethics," to be held at the University
of Tennessee, Knoxville, April 11-13, 1996. Submissions deadline:
January 15. For information, contact Hilde L. Nelson, Center for
Applied and Professional Ethics, 801 McClung Tower, University of
Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996; or call 615-974-3255.
The Society for Medical Decision Making 18th Annual Scientific Meeting
- October 13-16, 1996 at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel, Toronto,
Ontario. This meeting is an opportunity for a diverse and international
audience of scholars to present and critique original research
investigating the many facets of medical decision making. Topics
include: decision analysis, diagnostic test evaluation, the psychology
of medical decision making, cost-effectiveness, meta analysis, utility
theory and outcomes measurement; a symposium examining key issues in
the transfer of decision research into practice; and more. The deadline
for submission of abstracts will be May 1996. For further information,
contact the program chairs: Hilary A. Llewellyn-Thomas, PhD, Clinical
Epidemiology Unit, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, 2075 Bayview
Avenue, North York, Ontario, Canada M4N 3M5. Telephone 416-480-6190;
fax 416-480-6048; e-mail
hlt@ices.on.ca; or Annette M. O'Connor, PhD,
Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa, 451 Smyth Road,
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1H 8M5. Telephone 613-562-5800, ext. 8297; fax
613-562-5439; e-mail
amona@acadvml.uottawa.ca.
Member's Corner
Arthur Caplan (University of Pennsylvania) reviewed Stephen Wear's book
Informed Consent: Patient Autonomy and Physician Beneficence Within
Clinical Medicine in the December issue of The Journal of the
American Geriatric Association (December 1995-Volume 43, No. 12: pp.
3-5). Wear was a moderator/participant in an afternoon conference
entitled "How to Practice Ethically in an Unethical Environment" at the
annual meeting of the American College of Surgeons in New Orleans,
Louisiana on October 23.
Comments and Suggestions
Your comments and suggestions regarding this newsletter are encouraged.
Please send them to the Center address, or by e-mail to the newsletter
editor, Tim Madigan
timmadigan@aol.com. We also need information on
upcoming events that would be of interest to Center members. The
deadline for the next newsletter is November 15th.