Center for Clinical Ethics and Humanities in Health Care
Bioethics Bulletin
Editor: Tim Madigan
May 1996
Volume Three, Number Five
Co-Directors: Gerald Logue, MD and Stephen Wear, PhD
Secretary: Lisa Bolten
Research Associate: Charles Jack, MA
Address: Center for Clinical Ethics and Humanities in Health Care
Veteran's Affairs Medical Center
3495 Bailey Avenue Buffalo, NY 14215
Telephone: 862-3412 FAX: 862-4748
Website:
http://wings.buffalo.edu/faculty/research/bioethics/
E-mail sent to Lisa BoltenLBolten@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, MD 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
The Center currently has three committees: Community Affairs, Education
and Research. All Center members are welcome to participate in these
committees.
Ethic Committee Orientation Project
A committee has been formed to generate a document (as well as allied video
material) which can be used to orient new members of area ethics committees.
It will include summaries of basic bioethics issues, the evolution and
variable character of ethics committees and consulting, area resources for
EC members, classic articles, NY State legal issues and guidelines, and
legal cases and statutes. Its next meeting will be on Monday, May 6th at
4:00 PM in Room 1104 of the VA Medical Center. Anyone interested in
assisting this project is strongly encouraged to attend. For further information, and
to receive a package of related documents, please contact Lisa Bolten at the
Center (862-3412).
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 mad allied research activities.
There will be two meetings held in May, at the Center for Inquiry, 1310
Sweet Home Road, between Maple and Rensch Roads (look for the twin
red-and-white gates). On Wednesday, May 22 at 4:00 PM, Drs. Boguslawa
Koczwara (Roswell Park) and Jack Freer (Millard Fillmore) will discuss the
recently published "SUPPORT Study" ("The Study to Understand Prognoses and
Preferences for Outcomes and Risks of Treatments), which appeared in the
November 22/29 issue of JAMA. This large multi-center study reported
disturbing findings about the hospital care of dying patients.
On Wednesday, May 29 at 4:00 PM, Donald Pollock, professor of anthropology
at the SUNY-Buffalo Dept. of Anthropology, will present "Healing Dilemmas,
or, Which Doctoring is the Witch Doctoring?" This paper considers some of
the ethical dilemmas faced by anthropologists who provide medical care in
"the field", usually without significant knowledge or experience of medicine and
illness. The paper is a tentative exploration, designed to solicit response
and encourage discussion of an ethical problem that is rarely addressed in
anthropology. If you plan to attend, please contact Chuck Jack at 862-3412.
He can send you a copy of the SUPPORT study and/or Pollock's paper.
Upcoming Lectures
May 10-11. The Joseph A. Grady, MD, Memorial Ethics Conference: "The Goals
of Medicine: Shaping New Priorities." The Westin Hotel - Renaissance Center,
Detroit, Michigan. Speakers include: Howard Brody, MD, Director, Center for
Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences, Michigan State University;
Daniel Callahan, PhD, President, the Hastings Center; Ellen Fox, MD, Director,
Programin Clinical Ethics, Medical Center at the University of Illinois;
Richard D. Lamm, LL.B., former Governor of Colorado; and Edmund Pellegrino,
MD, Director, the Center for Clinical Bioethics, Georgetown University
Medical Center. Registration is $150. For details, call John H. Burrows, MD,
chairman, St. John's Hospital and Medical Center Ethics and Human Values
Committee, at (810) 778-4080.
Saturday, May 11. "Spring Clinical Day 1996 - End of Life/Quality of Death."
Presenters: R. Milch, MD; J. Skretny, MA; M. Brecher, MD; J. Freer, MD; R.
Hewitt, MD; S. Nuland, MD. Sponsored by the SUNY-Buffalo School of Medicine
and Biomedical Sciences. Buffalo Marriott Hotel, 7:30 AM registration; 8:00
AM - 1:30 PM presentation. Topics to include: Dying Healed - the Nature of
Care at the End of Life; Delivering Bad News with Compassion and Hope;
confronting Difficult Emotional and Ethical Issues in the Care of the Dying.
Sherwin Nuland will deliver the luncheon keynote address: "Death, the Doctor
and Hope." Nuland teaches surgery and the history of medicine at Yale
University, and is author of the best-selling book _How We Die_ (Vintage
Books, 1993).
Tuesday, May 14. "Speaking the Language of Grief." 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM.
Hospice Mitchell Campus Education Center, 225 Como Park Boulevard,
Cheektowaga. Presenter: Terry Tafoya, PhD, executive director of Tamanawit,
Unltd, in Seattle. This international consulting firm provides training and
technical assistance on multiculturalism, bilingual education and
transcultural issues of medical health. Tafoya will speak on "Widow as
Butterfly: Speaking the Languages of Grief." Using Native American legends,
ceremonies and rituals of bereavement, participants will examine effective
ways of working with loss. Registration is $45 and includes continental
breakfast, breaks and materials. To register, call Life Transitions Center
by May 7 at 836-6460.
Tuesday, May 21. "Senior Resident Presentation Day." Sponsored by the
SUNY-Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, through the
Department of Pediatrics. The senior pediatric residents will each give 10
minute presentations, followed by 5 minutes discussion, at the Children's
Hospital of Buffalo, Kinch Auditorium, 10:00 AM - 3:30 PM. Contact Celeste
Farley at 878-7355 for a complete list of topics and lunch reservations.
Tuesday, June 4. "The Life and Death of Elderly Patients." Presenter: Steven
H. Miles, MD, Center for Biomedical Ethics, University of Minnesota. 1:00 PM -
4:30 PM. Hospice Buffalo, Mitchell Campus Conference Center. This conference
is open to all interested parties but will be particularly helpful for
practicing physicians and medical trainees, as well as nurses, and other
allied health professions who care for elderly patients at the end of life.
Dr. Miles is a geriatrician/ethicist who has spoken and written widely about
biomedical ethics. He was the ethics consultant (and subsequently the
primary physician) for Helga Wanglie, the elderly vegetative patient whose family
insisted upon continued mechanical treatment, despite the medical staff's
claim that such treatment was "futile." For details, contact Jack Freer, MD,
phone: 887-4852; fax: 887-5186; e-mail: jfreer@ubmedb.buffalo.edu.
Wednesday, June 12. "Thud and Blunder: The Lesser Known Medical
Complications of Warfare." Presenter: Richard Lee, MD. City-Wide Grand Rounds. Sponsored
by the SUNY- Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, through the
Department of Medicine. Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Hilleboe Auditorium,
Research Studies Center, 1st floor. 7:45 AM - 8:45 AM. Approved for 1.0
hours of AMA/PRA Category 1 credit. For further information, contact Mary Wysocki
at 898-3941.
History of Medicine Conference
The 69th annual meeting of the American Association for the History of
Medicine will be held in Buffalo, from May 9-12, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
Special functions such as the Annual Banquet and the Garrison lecture and
reception will showcase the richarchitectural heritage of Buffalo, including
Rockwell Hall on the Buffalo State Campus, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery,
and the Center for the Arts on the North Campus of SUNY-Buffalo. A special
exhibit on medicine in Western New York will be mounted at the Historical
Society. For details on how to register, contact Professor James Bono, Dept.
of History, Park Hall, SUNY-Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260; 645-2282, ext. 559;
e-mail: hischaos@acsu.buffalo.edu.
Undergraduate Conference on Bioethics
The Teaching Bioethics subcommittee of the Center's Educational Committee is
interested in holding a Western New York Undergraduate Conference on
Bioethics. Area instructors could present papers and panel discussions and
encourage their students to attend. If you would like to help organize this
conference, send your suggestions for dates, topics and presenters to Tim
Madigan; phone: 636-7571; fax: 636-1733; e- mail:
timmadigan@aol.com.
Members Corner
We are saddened to note the death of Bonnie Bullough. Bullough was serving
as Dean of Nursing at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
She headed the Nursing School at SUNY-Buffalo from 1980 through 1991 and
remained at the University as a faculty member until 1993, when she and her
husband Vern moved to Northridge, California. During their years in Buffalo,
the couple were known as "the dean team" because he served as Dean of
Natural and Social Sciences at Buffalo State College at the same time she served as
Dean of Nursing. A Memorial Service will be held at the SUNY-Buffalo Center
for Tomorrow on May 9. For details, contact Tim Madigan at 636-7571.
The Members Corner is designed to note research, presentations and published articles and books by Center members. Please send all such information to the newsletter editor so that the Center can keep members informed about the work occurring in this area
.
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 May 15th.