Center for Clinical Ethics and Humanities in Health Care
Bioethics Bulletin
Editor: Tim Madigan
October 1996
Volume Three, Number Ten
Co-Directors: Gerald Logue, MD and Stephen Wear, PhD
Associate Director:
Jack Freer, MD
Research Associates:
Charles Jack and
Adrianne McEvoy
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/
Send E-mail to: wear@acsu.buffalo.edu.
Newsletter Distribution
The Center newsletter can be delivered to you via e-mail or fax
(or paper if necessary). To receive it by fax, call 862-3412 and
give us your fax number. To receive the newsletter by email,
forward your request to Jack Freer, MD jfreer@buffalo.edu
and your name will be added to BIOBUL-LIST. A second list
(BIOETH-LIST) is maintained for local announcements and
discussion in addition to newsletter distribution.
Upcoming Center Meetings
The Center currently has three committees: Community Affairs,
Education and Research. All Center members are welcome to
participate in these committees.
Center Reading Group
The Center has established a reading and research group, the
purpose of which is to discuss in-progress publications and
encourage new publications mad allied research activities. The
group has chosen to focus on the general area of "death and
dying" during the Fall/Spring semesters. There will be two
meetings held in October, at the Center for Inquiry, 1310 Sweet
Home Road, between Maple and Rensch Roads (look for the twin
red-and-white gates). The dates are October 9 and October 30.
On October 9th Sherrie Lyons and Jim Moran will lead a discussion
keyed to the article by Charles Baron, Dan Brock, et al. entitled
"A Model Act to Authorize and Regulate Physician-Assisted Suicide,"
Harvard Journal on Legislation, Vol. 33, No. 1 (1996),
pp. 1-34, which attempts to formulate specific policy guidelines
for the legalization of active euthanasia. Newcomers are welcome.
Contact
Adrianne McEvoy
at the Center (862-3412) for information
and materials.
Ethics Grand Rounds
(Sponsored by the Center Community Affairs Committee)
Wednesday, October 16, 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM. Kenmore Mercy Hospital.
"Considerations Surrounding Brain-death Dilemmas in a Young Adult".
Co-chairpersons Sr. Sally Maloney and Norman Chassin, MD, invite
all interested parties to attend the city-wide Ethics Grand Rounds
at the newly reconstructed Kenmore Mercy Hospital, 2950 Elmwood
Avenue, Kenmore. The one-week hospital course of a previously
healthy 35 year old man, found unresponsive on the floor of his
work station and who was resuscitated and brought to the Emergency
Room for admission, will be described briefly by those responsible
for his care: ICU nurses, cardiologist, neurologist, Pastoral Care
Counselor and transplant manager. Additionally, Brad Truax (Medical
Director at Erie County Medical Center) will discuss proposed
statewide guidelines in managing brain death issues, and Richard
Hull (former chairman, Kenmore Mercy Hospital Ethics Committee)
will summarize the ethical principles operative in this case.
Center to Co-Sponsor Lectures
Pieter Admiraal, MD, one of the leading exponents of the Netherlands'
euthanasia policy, will be giving a public lecture on Thursday,
September 26 at 7:00 PM, at the Center for Inquiry, 1310 Sweet Home
Road, Amherst. He will be joined by Marilynne Seguin, RN, executive
director of the Canadian organization Dying With Dignity. Further
details, including the lecture topic and time, will be given in the
next "Bioethics Bulletin."
The Center for Clinical Ethics and
Humanities in Health Care will also be sponsoring a presentation on
Friday, October 18 at 7:00 PM by Olgierd Lindan, MD, on "Medical
Quackery and New Age Medicine." Dr. Lindan is a longtime collector of
controversial medical devices and is the proprietor of his own museum
in Cleveland, Ohio. He will be demonstrating several bogus cures from
his own collection. For details on these two events, please contact Tim
Madigan at 636-7571 or timmadigan@aol.com
Fiedler Symposium
Leslie Fiedler, Samuel L. Clemens Professor at the SUNY-Buffalo
Department of English, has just published a new book with David R.
Godine Publishers, entitled _The Tyranny of the Normal: Essays
on Bioethics, Theology and Myth_. It deals extensively with such
medical ethics issues as the removal of life support, the role that
doctors play in our society, the trend back to herbal medicine, the
reasons people fear to donate their organs, and the media
representation of nurses. A special symposium to honor Fiedler and
his new work will be held on Friday, November 8th at 4:00 PM at the
Center for Inquiry, 1310 Sweet Home Road. Stephen Wear, Jack Freer
and Tim Madigan will discuss various aspects of the book, and
Fiedler will respond. Further details will be provided in the next
Bioethics Bulletin.
Upcoming Lectures
Friday, October 4. Hospice Clinical Education Day. "Healing Words:
Communicating with the Seriously Ill or Dying Patient". A series
of workshops will be offered featuring J. Donald Schumaker, Psy.D,
president & CEO of the Hospice Association; Robert Milch, MD,
medical director of Hospice Buffalo; Lauren Michalakes, MD, Hospice
physician; Robert Stall, MD, medical director of Kresge Residence;
Judith Skretny, vice president, Life Transitions Center; and Robert
Fink, Hospice chaplain. To register, contact Joyce Ortman at Life
Transitions Center, 836-6460.
Thursday, October 10. National Primary Care Day. "The Rewards of a
Primary Care Practice". Atrium of the Biomedical Education Building
(Formerly C/F/S Addition). Hosted by the SUNY-Buffalo Medical
Student Primary Care Club and the Primary Care Resource Center
(PCRC). A talk show for medical students and primary care faculty.
Lunch will be provided. Guest Panelists: Lisa Benson, MD, General
Internist, SUNY-Buffalo Assistant Dean for Curricular Affairs;
Roseanne Berger, MD, Family Physician and SUNY-Buffalo Associate Dean
for Graduate Medical Education; Marty Hoffman, MD, Pediatrician,
Health Care Plan, Springville Pediatrics. For details, call Patricia
Krupp at the Primary Care Resource Center, 829-3176.
Friday, October 11. Fourth Annual Braunschiedel Adolescent Lecture:
"Adolescent Depression and Suicide". Presenter: David Brent, MD -
University of Pittsburgh. Childrens Hospital, 219 Bryant Street,
Kinch Auditorium. Pediatric Grand Rounds. Sponsored by the
SUNY-Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM. Approved for 1.0 hours of AMA/PRA Category 1
credit. For further information contact Marcia Chelminiak, Office
of Pediatric Medical Education, 878-7355.
Friday, October 25. "Teaching and Learning in the Clinical Setting".
Presenter: Janet Palmer Halfer, EdD, Associate Director for Faculty
Development, Harvard Medical School. Lippshutz Room, Biomedical
Education Building (formerly the C/F/S Addition). For further
information, contact Patricia Krupp at the Primary Care Resource
Center, 829-3176.
Sunday, November 3. Gerald Jampolski, founder of the Center for
Attitudinal Healing, will speak about "love, intimacy and death"
on Hospice Buffalo's Mitchell Campus in Cheektowaga, from 3:00 PM
to 6:00 PM. This lecture is sponsored by the Hospice Association
and the Unity Church of Practical Christianity. The cost is $35.00.
To register, call the Life Transitions Center by October 25, 1996
at 836-6460.
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 SUNY-Buffalo 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. It
is free and open to the public.
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. Speakers include H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr.
(Rice University and Baylor University School of Medicine),
Lawrence McCullough (Baylor University School of Medicine), E.
Haavi Morreim (University of Tennessee Medical School),
Eric Juengst (Case Western Reserve University, Dorothy Nelkin (New
York University), Kathryn Montgomery Hunter (Northwestern
University Medical School), Julie Rothstein (Yale University), and
Howard Brody (Michigan State University. For registration
information and further details, contact:Professor James Bono,
phone: 645-2282; e-mail: hischaos@acsu.buffalo.edu.
Memorial Society Meeting
The Greater Buffalo Memorial Society, Inc. will hold its annual
membership meeting on Sunday, October 13 at 2:30 PM, in the Parish
Hall of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo, 695
Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo. Dr. Thomas T. Frantz, Chairman of the
Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology at SUNY-Buffalo,
will speak on "Bringing Comfort to Grieving People". A SUNY-Buffalo
faculty member since 1967, Dr. Frantz is founder of three groups
that provide emotional counseling and support for terminally ill
patients and bereaved families and individuals: the Life Transition
Center, Compassionate Friends, and the Suicide Bereavement Group.
Dr. Frantz has given more than 1,300 invited keynote addresses,
workshops, lectures and in-service training sessions on death and
dying, stress, and often terminal illness. for further information,
contact Ted Bianiek a 837-8636.
Hospice News
The fourth Festival of Fine Wine and Friends, Hospice's annual
fundraiser, will be held on Friday, October 11 at the Harbor View
Room in the new Marine Midland Arena. For details, call the Hospice
Foundation of Western New York at 686-8090.
Anti-Euthanasia Web Page
Patrick Pullicino, a neurologist at Buffalo General Hospital, has
set up a web page for physicians against euthanasia:
http://www.wp.com/JMV/Anti-Euthanasia
If you would like further
information, contact Pullicino at 859-7521, or pager 629-1284.
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.
Pollock, D. "Dilemmas in Healing and the Body Politic: Dilemmas
of Doctoring in Ethnographic Fieldwork", a special issue of
Anthropological Quarterly, vol. 69, no. 3, pp. 149-158, July 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 October 15th.