Center for Clinical Ethics and Humanities in Health Care

Bioethics Bulletin

July 1997
Volume Four, Number Seven

Co-Directors: Gerald Logue, MD and Stephen Wear, PhD
Associate Director: Jack Freer, MD
Research Associate: 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

This newsletter can be delivered to you via e-mail or fax or over the internet (forward your request to: Jack Freer, MD at: jfreer@buffalo.edu). If you prefer fax, call 862-3412 and leave your fax number. We encourage and appreciate the use of e-mail and fax distribution rather than paper for the newsletter.

Center Listservers

The Center now maintains two automated e-mail listservers. BIOETH-LIST is primarily designed for those in the Greater Buffalo area and permits subscribers to post to the list. This list is available for posting local announcements, as well as a medium for discussion of relevant topics. It will also distribute the Center newsletter, "Bioethics Bulletin." If you are on this list, you can send a message to the entire list by addressing the message to: BIOETHLIST@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu. Archives of old BIOETH-LIST messages are maintained at: http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/archives/bioeth-list.html

BIOBUL-LIST is strictly used for distribution of "Bioethics Bulletin" and is mainly for those outside of Western New York. If you have further questions about this service, contact Jack Freer at 887-4852 or at: jfreer@buffalo.edu.

Center Website Receives Award

Growth House, Inc. http://www.growthhouse.org , located in San Francisco, provides information and referral services for agencies working with death and dying issues both internationally and in the San Francisco Bay Area. They have awarded the Center for Clinical Ethics and Humanities in Health Care's website a three-star excellence award, and have written in their newsletter that: "Growth House would like to thank Dr. Jack Freer for selecting the Growth House search engine for inclusion on this website. Visitors to Dr. Freer's site can now scan the Growth House database of end of life resources directly from his pages. This collaboration allows both of our organizations to speed delivery of information about terminal care across the web. This interdisciplinary academic center of the University at Buffalo addresses many end of life issues and publishes the 'Bioethics Bulletin,' which is also available be e-mail. Website includes resources for medical ethics, the rights of dying people and their caregivers, advance directives, hospice care, palliative care, confidentiality and medical record privacy resources, and many links to other medical ethics websites."

Speaker's Bureau

The Center is interested in compiling a list of speakers who could address current issues in biomedical ethics, for class discussions, media interviews and other presentations. If you would like to be on this list, please contact Adrianne McEvoy at the Center, with your name, a brief biography and the topic or topics you would be willing to speak about.

Romanell Lectureship

Patrick Romanell, PhD, formerly H.W. Benedict Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso, and a pioneer in the field of medical ethics, has established the "Patrick and Edna Romanell Annual Lecture on Philosophical Issues in Medicine and Health Care,' to be administered by the Center for Clinical Ethics and Humanities in Health Care. Professor Romanell was honored by the Center in April for his lifelong work.

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 Newsletter

The Center for Clinical Ethics and Humanities in Health Care would like to issue, in edition to "The Bioethics Bulletin", a quarterly or bi-annual newsletter, with details about the Center's activities and short articles written by the Center's members. If you would like to be involved with this project, please contact Tim Madigan at 626-5826 (e-mail: timmadigan@aol.com). Any and all suggestions for format and content would be welcomed.

Center Newsletter

Upcoming Lectures

Thursday, July 24. "Genetics and Cancer: A Practical Approach." Noon - 6:00 PM. Buffalo Marriott Hotel, 1340 Millersport Highway. Topics include: "Risk Assessment and Counseling: A Practical Approach to 'Who Should be Tested?'", by Carolyn Farrell, MS, CNP, CGC, and a panel presentation on "Personal, Professional and Social Perspectives", with Rebeca Ritchie, JD, John Reinhart, MD, Mark Farrell, JD and Thomas C. Rosenthal, MD. Quarterly Grand Rounds - Sponsored by the SUNY-Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, through the Department of Family Medicine, in conjunction with Roswell Park Cancer Institute and the Erie County Chapter, New York State Academy of Family Physicians. Approved for AMA/PRA Category 1 credit. For further information contact Holmes McGuigan at 898-5212.

Monday, July 28. "The Patient's Final Rights: How to Care for People in the Last Phases of Life." Presenter: Douglas C. Smith, MA, MS, Mdiv, Director of Kanawha Hospice in Charleston, West Virginia and author of The Tao of Dying and The Rights of the Sick and Dying. 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM. Radisson Hotel, 4243 Genesee Street. $95.00. To register, call 1-800-726-3888.

Joint Meeting Announced

The American Association of Bioethics, the Society for Bioethics Consultation, and the Society for Health and Human Values will be holding a joint meeting November 5-9, 1997 at the Baltimore Marriott Inner Harbor Hotel, Baltimore, Maryland. The theme is "Visions for Ethics and Humanities in a Changing Healthcare Environment." This theme is meant to provoke reflection on both the perils and possibilities inherent in the rapid changes now taking place in the American healthcare system, and to some extent in healthcare systems throughout the world. Can ethics and humanities assist our society in gaining the wisdom and the political will necessary to realize the possibilities and avoid the perils? As traditional assumptions change about the way medicine and healthcare can be organized, delivered, and financed, does that mean the traditional frameworks of humanistic and value-based thinking will lose their capacity to inform our social decisions? Or will traditional norms and expectations become more important than ever?

Under this broad topic, three themes will organize many of the sessions featured at the meeting. These are "Institutions, Technology, and Culture." Presentations will be grouped around the relationship between ethical and humanities perspectives on institutional and organizational change, new developments in medical science and technology, and the cultural diversity and changing moral attitudes that are of growing importance in American society. For further information, please contact: Joint Meeting, 6728 Old McLean Village Drive, McLean, VA 22101; fax: 703-556-8729; e-mail: shhv@aol.com.

Call for Papers

The Center for Multicultural Nursing & Health and African-Americans for Humanism will sponsor a conference on "Ethical Dilemmas Arising from Multicultural Differences in Health" in late Fall of 1997. To submit abstracts and/or manuscripts for possible presentation, or for additional information, contact: Essie Alberta Riley Eddins, PhD, RN, SM, PO Box 889, Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, New York 14722; phone and fax: 357-2479.

The State Society on Aging of New York announces its 25th Annual Conference, October 22-24, 1997, at the Desmond in Albany, New York. The conference theme is: "Building Generational and Cultural Bridges: A 25th Anniversary." Deadline for abstracts is June 2, 1997. Questions about the program and abstracts should be addressed to: Duane A. Matcha, PhD, SSA Program Chair, Department of Sociology, Siena College, 515 Loudon Road, Loudonville, New York 12211-1462; telephone: 518-783-2944; fax: 518-783-4293; e-mail: matcha@siena.edu.

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.

Jack, Charles and Wear, Stephen: GenEthics: Technological Intervention in Human Reproduction as a Philosophical Problem by Kurt Bayertz in the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, Vol. 22, No. 2 (April 1997), pp. 199-210.

Center member Richard T. Hull, professor of philosophy at SUNY-Buffalo, has accepted a new position, as Executive Director of the Texas Council for the Humanities, in Austin, Texas, effective September 1, 1997. Hull writes: "My resignation from the University at Buffalo will be effective as of the 30th anniversary of my first employment there. I leave my position in the University with a profound sense of appreciation for those 30 years - appreciation for the intellectual stimulation and growth provided by faculty and student colleagues, appreciation for the extraordinary experience of seeing intellects come to mature fruition, appreciation for the institution's willingness to allow my periodic excursions from the Academy into other elements of the world of human enterprise, appreciation for tenure and appointments as an associate and a full professor. I do not leave with a sense of dissatisfaction; rather, I leave in order to continue my personal flourishing and growth, moving into new responsibilities and challenges."

Center member Dr. Rodger Jackson has accepted a tenure track position at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey as an assistant professor of philosophy, starting with the Fall 1997 semester. Rodger is a recent Michigan State PhD who has taught various philosophy courses at local Western New York institutions, including Canisius College, while seeking a more permanent position. He was also a welcome and valuable participant in the Center's research and reading group.

Congratulations, Dick and Rodger, and Bon Voyage!

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.