Center for Clinical Ethics and Humanities in Health Care
Bioethics Bulletin
Editor: Tim Madigan
December 1995
Volume Two, Number Twelve
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
A combined meeting of the Center's Community Affairs and Education
Committees will be held on Monday, January 8 at 4 PM, in the ECMC
Staff Dining Room . This will provide an opportunity to plan educational
programs which will meet the needs of member institutions. All Center
members are welcome, even if not previously identified with either
committee. For further information, contact Jack Freer
JFreer@ubmedb.buffalo.edu or at 887-4852.
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. The next two meetings
will be held on Tuesday, December 19th and Wednesday, January 10th 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 six chapters. Also
let him know if you are interested in attending future reading group
meetings.
Upcoming Lectures
"How to Handle Tough Teens Issues in Adolescent Health." Thursday,
December 7, 6:00 - 9:30 PM. Sponsored by Independent Health. To be held
at the University Inn. Registration is required - non-participating
providers, $45.00, IPA providers, $35.00, residents $20.00, Nurse
Practioners $20.00. For information, contact Madonna Fox at 832-5195.
"Complicated Grief." Friday, December 8, 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM. Presenter:
Therese A. Rando, PhD. Dr. Rando is founder and executive director for
the Institute for the Study and Treatment of Loss. She is author of
_Treatment of Complicated Mourning_, _How To Go On Living When Someone
You Loves Dies_, and _Grief, Dying and Death: Clinical Interventions
for Caregivers_. Hospice Mitchell Campus Education Center, 225 Como
Park Boulevard. Registration: $85.00. To register call Life Transitions
Center & Hospice Bereavement Services: 836-6460.
"Research Forum - Practice Guidelines: A Study of Factors Affecting
Physician Adherence." Thursday, December 14, 7:30 AM. Presenter: Paul
James, MD. Faculty Development Workshop - sponsored by the UB School of
Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, through the Department of Family
Medicine. To be held at the Erie County Medical Center, Family Medicine
Modular Complex conference room. Contact Heather Hebeler at 898-4743
for further information.
"Multicultural Perspectives on Death and Dying." Friday, December 15,
9:00 AM. Presenter: Bob Fink, M.Div. HIV Grand Rounds - sponsored by
the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, through the
Immunodeficiency Services and Life Transitions Center, an affiliate of
Hospice of Buffalo, Inc. Held at Erie County Medical Center, Smith
auditorium (3rd floor). This program has been approved for 1.0 hour of
AMA/PRA Category 1 credit. For further information, contact Lori Berds
at 898-4119.
"Living With Loss, Healing With Hope, Surviving the Inevitable Crisis of
Life." Thursday, January 18, 7:00 PM. Presenter: Dr. Earl A. Grollman,
Oklahoma City crisis counselor. Temple Beth Am, 4660 Sheridan Drive,
Amherst.
International Symposium
Buffalo has been selected as the site of the Fifth Basic Scientific
Symposium of the International Transplant Society, to be held in 1997.
The announcement was made by the Ernest Witebsky Center for Immunology
at UB and the Greater Buffalo Convention and Visitors Bureau. Members
of the Society, representatives of top scholars in the field of
transplant science, selected Buffalo over bids from other scientific
communities including Harvard Medical School, Universiy of New South
Wales and Inselpital Bern in Switzerland, among others. The society,
which has several Nobel Prize winners as founding and general members,
holds its bi-annual symposium in alternating Old and New World sites.
Basab K. Mookerjee, UB professor of medicine and chair of the
organizing committee, secured the symposium, along with Roger
Cunningham, director of the Witebsky Center. Mookerjee noted that the
symposium will be dedicated to the research interests of Felix Milgrom,
UB Distinguished Professor of Microbiology. Milgrom has devoted more
than 50 years of research to the study of the transplant science. The
local organizing committee includes Mookerjee, Cunningham, C.J.
Abeyounis, UB professor of microbiology; Boris Albini, UB professor of
microbiology; and Jacob Bergsland, UB assistant professor of surgery
and director of heart transplantation at the Buffalo General Hospital.
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.
Seminar on Detachment and Engagement
A highly interactive seminar with multi-disciplinary participants on
the topic "Detachment and Engagement: Objectivity and Emotions in
Clinical Practice" will be held July 27 - August 2, 1996 at Hiram
College in Hiram, Ohio. Faculty will address major conceptual issues
and facilitate working groups. Readings will include selections from
imaginative literature and scholarly investigations in philosophy and
social sciences. Seminar faculty: Howard Brody, MD, PhD; Sandra
Harding, PhD; Ellen More, PhD; Rosemary Tong, PhD. Enrollment will be
limited. Application deadline: April 30, 1996. Costs including room and
board: $950.00. For information, contact the Center for Literature,
Medicine and the Health Care Professions, Mahan House, Hiram College,
Hiram, OH 44234; phone 216-569-5380; fax 216-569-5449.
Call for Papers
The Midwest Bioethics Center invites applications for its fourth annual
Clinical Ethics Institute for Nurses, to be held October 14-19 in
Kansas City, MO. For information, contact Cecilia Stadler, Midwest
Bioethics Center, 1100 Pennsylvania, Suite 4041, Kansas City, MO 64105;
816-221-1100; fax 816-221-2002.
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.
Organ Shortage in Western New York
The following information was received from Upstate New York Transplant
Services, Inc. (UNYTS): Due to the organ shortage in Western New York,
144 patients are currently waiting for organs at area hospitals. This
includes: 102 waiting for kidney; 23 waiting for heart; 14 waiting for
lung; 4 waiting for kidney/pancreas; 1 waiting for pancreas. To date,
in 1995 UNYTS has had 28 organ donors, a significant increase from this
time last year (in 1994 UNYTS had 18 donors for the year). UNYTS is a
non-profit organization authorized by the federal government to accept
anatomical gifts for transplantation and/or medical research. UNYTS
coordinates all organ, tissue and eye donation in the eight counties of
Western New York, resulting in the transplant of patients nationally
and at four local hospitals: Buffalo General Hospital, Children's
Hospital, V.A. Medical Center and Erie County Medical Center. In 1994,
these institutions jointly performed the following transplants: 24
kidney and 7 heart. In addition, 202 individuals provided bone, skin,
heart valves, corneas and saphenous veins for life-saving, life-
enhancing procedures that together benefited over 900 people in our
community. If you would like further information on UNYTS, call Bridget
Llewellyn, Community Relations Manager, at 853-6667, or write to her at
165 Genesee Street, Suite 102, Buffalo, New York 14203.
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 December 15th.