Center for Clinical Ethics and Humanities in Health Care

Bioethics Bulletin

Editor: Tim Madigan
July 1996
Volume Three, Number Seven

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 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, MD, phone: 887- 4852; fax: 887-5186; e-mail: 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 distributionrather than paper for the newsletter. Please let us know if there are any people you would like to have placed on our mailing list.

Center E-Mail LISTSERVER

In the near future, Bioethics Bulletin e-mail delivery will be done by automated listserver. This will also permit us to use the server for other purposes such as on-line discussions. Discussion topics currently under consideration include “Teaching Bioethics” and “Bioethics Law.” If there are any topics you think would like to be considered for on-line discussion, notify Jack Freer at 887-4852 (e-mail: jfreer@ubmedb.buffalo.edu).

Upcoming Center Meetings

The Center currently has three committees: Community Affairs, Education and Research. All Center members are welcome to participate in these committees.

Community Affairs: Co-chairs: Karen Maricle, RN (ECMC) and Rev. Richard Zajac (Sister's Hospital). The Community Affairs Committee supports and sponsors educational activities in the Western New York area, particularly through the development of monthly grand rounds, rotating through WNY health care institutions.
Education: Co-chairs: Jack Freer, MD (Medicine - SUNY-Buffalo and Millard Fillmore) and James Moran, PhD (Philosophy - Daemen College). The Education Committee plans and coordinates ongoing educational activities. This includes clinical ethics conferences at health care institutions, educational programs and conferences in a variety of academic settings, and Continuing Medical Education programs.
Research: Co-chairs: William Coles, MD (Opthamology - SUNY- Buffalo) and James Bono (History - SUNY-Buffalo). The Research Committee supports and initiates reading and research groups focused on topics in the clinical ethics and humanities areas. These groups range in function from reading groups focused on general areas, e.g. health care reform, to specific topics, e.g. patenting of surgical techniques.

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 June, at the Center for Inquiry, 1310 Sweet Home Road, between Maple and Rensch Roads (look for the twin red-and-white gates). On Wednesday, July 17 at 4:00 PM, Dr. Stephen Wear will discuss the revised chapter six of his book _Informed Consent_, entitled "A Model for Informed Consent Revisited." The talk is open to any interested participants. Also, if you would like to give a presentation to the reading group, please contact Tim Madigan at 636-7571 or by e-mail: timmadigan@aol.com.

Upcoming Lectures

Thursday, July 18. "Diabetes: Complications and Control." Sponsored by the SUNY-Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences through the Department of Family Medicine. Quarterly Grand Rounds in conjunction with the Erie County Chapter of the NYS Academy of Family Physicians. To be held at the Buffalo Marriott Hotel, 1340 Millersport Highway, 11:30 AM - 5:40 PM. A Business Meeting/Dinner of the Erie County Chapter, NYS Academy of Family Physicians will follow at 6:30 PM. Registration is necessary. Contact Holmes McGuigan at 898-5212 for further information.

October 10-13. Society for Health and Human Values Annual Meeting: "Health Care, Ethics, and Humanities: From Our Roots to Our Shoots." Sheraton Cleveland City Centre Hotel - for reservations, phone (216) 771-7600. This is a joint meeting with the Society for Bioethics Consultation. For more information, phone the SHHV National Office at (703) 556-9222 or e-mail: SHHV@aol.com.

Health Treatment Discussion

Mitchell Zavon, MD, is interested in starting a discussion group on unproven health treatments. Meetings will be held at the Niagara Falls Unitarian-Universalist Society. If you would like to participate, please call him at 754-2176.

Symposium on Ethics and Values in Medicine and the Biomedical Sciences

In conjunction with the SUNY-Buffalo Sesquicentennial celebration, the Center is helping to sponsor a major symposium, to be held from November 14-16.

Thursday, Nov. 14, 1996

Opening (Evening) Reception

Friday, Nov. 15, 1996

Keynote Address (8:30AM)
H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr. (Rice University and Baylor University School of Medicine): "Bioethics at the End of the Millennium: Fashioning Health Care Policy in the Absence of a Content-full Moral Vision."

Session One:The Human Genome Project (10:00AM- 12:30PM)

Eric Jeungst (Case Western Reserve University): "The Challenge of Human Genome Research for the Professional Ethics of Medicine."
Dorothy Nelkin (New York University): "Human Genetics and Social Policy: The Public Appropriation of the Gene."
Diane Paul (University of Massachusetts at Boston): "Lessons from the History of PKU Screening."

Lunch (12:30-1:30PM)

Ethics Rounds at Local Hospitals (2:00-4:30PM)

Saturday, Nov. 16, 1996

Session Two:The Dilemma of Funding Health Care: Technology, Resources and Priorities (9AM-11:30AM)

Laurence McCullough (Baylor University School of Medicine): "A Preventative Ethics Approach to the Managed Practice of Medicine."
E. Haavi Morreim (University of Tennessee Medical School): "New Technologies: When to Buy (Into) New Ones, When to Stay with the Old."
H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr.: "Toward Multiple Standards of Health Delivery: Taking Moral and Economic Diversity Seriously."

Lunch (11:30AM-12:30PM)

Session Three: The Physician-Patient Relationship. (12:30- 3:00PM)

Kathryn Montgomery Hunter (Northwestern University Medical School): "A Medicine of Neighbors."
Julie Rothstein (Yale University): "Can I Trust You Now? Trust and the Physician-Patient Relationship: Implications for Continuity of Care."
Howard Brody (Michigan State University): "Can Relationships Heal -- Cheap?"

Break (3-3:30PM)

Session Four: Roundtable Discussion (3:30-5PM)

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.

Does the Body Matter?

As part of next fall's 150th anniversary celebration, SUNY-Buffalo is sponsoring a major academic symposium entitled "Does the Body Matter? A UB Sesquicentennial Symposium on Frontiers of Knowledge in Nature, Society and Culture.", on Friday, October 4 at the Slee Concert Hall, North Campus. This will bring together a distinguished group of scholars: Gerald Edelman, Nobel-Prize winning neuroscientist; N. Katherine Hayles, leading cultural critic of changing technologies; Bruno Latour, sociologist of science; Richard Lewontin, biologist- critic of the human genome project; Margaret Locke, anthropologist of non-Western cultures; and a panel of notable SUNY-Buffalo faculty. The symposium will address the ongoing redefinition of the human body in contemporary society. The "Bioethics Bulletin" will have further details in future issues.

Members Corner

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.

Joseph Kelly, PhD, JD, Associate Professor at Buffalo State College, has published an article entitled "AIDS Phobia and Damages for Emotional Distress" in the current Torts, Insurance and Compensation Journal of the New York State Bar.

Wear, S.E. and Logue, G: "Informed Consent for Organ Transplantation: Mandating the Participation of the Family"; _Law and Policy_, Vol. 17, No. 2 (April 1996), pp. 210-216.

Wear, S.E.: "Sanctity of Life and Human Dignity at the Bedside" in Sanctity of Life and Human Dignity, edited by Kurt Bayertz; Dordrecht, Holland: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996, pp. 57-71.

Tim Madigan participated in a panel discussion entitled "Medical Ethics: New Technologies, New Challenges," along with Dr. Henry Morgentaler and Marilynne Seguin, executive director of Dying With Dignity, at the Humanist Association of Canada annual conference in Toronto, Ontario, June 14, 1996.

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 July 15th.