Center for Clinical Ethics and Humanities in Health Care

Bioethics Bulletin

November 1997
Volume Four, Number Eleven

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: BIOETH-LIST@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.

Upcoming Center Meetings

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

Reading Group

The Center’s Reading Group will reconvene its regular meeting, after a summer hiatus. For the Fall semester, the Group will be focusing on the book The Healer’s Power by Howard Brody, MD. On Wednesday, November 12, Paul Johnson, professor of philosophy at D’Youville College, and Center co-director Gerald Logue, will discuss chapters 4-5 and on Wednesday, Dec. 10, co-director Stephen Wear, will discuss chapters 6-7. Both meetings begin at 4:00 PM. The meetings are held at the Center for Inquiry, 1310 Sweet Home Road, between Maple and Rensch Roads in Amherst. Meetings are open to all interested parties. To receive copies of the reading material, or for further information, contact Adrianne McEvoy at 862-3412.

Community Affairs

Friday, November 14. The Ethics Committee of Mercy Hospital of Buffalo presents: "Federal Welfare Reform and Catholic School Teaching." 8:00 AM-10:00 AM, Mercy Hospital Cafetorium. Presenters: Rev. Thomas J. Massaro, S.J., Assistant Professor of Moral Theology, Weston Jesuit School of Theology, and Jan C. Heller, PhD, Director, Center for Ethics in Health Care, St. Joseph’s Health System, Atlanta, Georgia. Deadline for registration is November 1. To register, contact Joan Coffta, Mercy Hospital, 565 Abbott Road, Buffalo, NY 14220; phone: 828-2182; fax: 828-2700.

Upcoming Lectures

Wednesday, November 12. The Fifth Annual Alloway Lecture. 4:00-5:30 PM, in the Ben Sadowski Auditorium at Mount Sinai Hospital (600 University Avenue, 18th Floor). The lecture will be given by Daniel P. Sulmasy, OFM, MD, PhD (Director, Center for Clinical Bioethics, and Associate Professor of Medicine, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, D.C.). His talk is entitled "Adam Smith at the Bedside: Should Health Care be Considered a Market Commodity?" For more information, contact Margot Smith at 416-978-0871; e-mail: margot.smith@utoronto.ca.

Thursday, November 13. The Third Annual Ethics in Elder Care Workshop. "Ethical Outcomes in Times of Change: Riding the Waves." 8:30 AM-4:00 PM. Villa Colombo Homes for the Aged, Inc., 40 Playfair Avenue, Toronto. The workshop will be of interest to all those who provide health care and services for elderly persons: board directors, physicians, chaplains, health care managers, nurses, social workers, volunteers, and advocacy group members. George Webster will give a keynote address on "Moral Residue and Moral Integrity." For more information, call 416-789-2113.

Tuesday, December 16. A One-Day Bioethics Symposium in memory of Benjamin Freedman. Sir Mortimer B. Davis-Jewish General Hospital, McGill University, Montreal. The symposium is being sponsored by the McGill Centre for Translational Research in Cancer, the McGill Biomedical Ethics Unit, and the Jewish General Hospital Research Ethics Office. The invited speakers are: Robert Levine, Sam Gorovitz, Abbyanne Lynch, Arthur Caplan, Charles Weijer, Francoise Baylis. For more information, please contact Dr. Gerald Batist, McGill University Centre for Translational Research in Cancer, tel: 514-340-7915; fax: 514-340-7916; e-mail: GBatist@onc.JGH.McGill.ca.

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.

Student Bioethcs Forum

The Student Bioethics Forum was established at Princeton University to provide the chance for the discussion of current bioethical issues such as genetic engineering, reproductive rights, infectious diseases, euthanasia, and fetal transplant/research. It is publishing a national bioethics journal this Fall, and is seeking submissions from students around the country. For information, contact Nirva Patel, Public Relations Director, Student Bioethics Forum, at: nbpatel@princeton.edu. The journal will be in hardcopy and present on the website: http://www.princeton.edu/~bioethic.

Call for Papers

The first International Research Utilization Conference on "Research Utilization: Preparing for the New Millennium" will be held on April 24-25, 1998 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. The goal of the conference is to facilitate the exchange of theoretical, empirical and experiential knowledge of research utilization in evidence-based practice for nurses and other health care professionals. The deadline for abstract submissions is November 1. Send abstracts to: Denise Eckert, Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto, 50 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H4; phone: 416-978-5627; fax: 416-978-8222; e-mail: erg@istar.ca. On October 22 and 23, 1998, Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario will host its third annual conference on business and professional ethics. The Laurier conferences are designed to foster dialogue and ongoing linkages between academics and practitioners. They stress interaction between academic researchers in the field of ethics and practitioners.

In recent years a variety of issues regarding the ethical behavior of practicing professionals have arisen in most professions. For the 1998 Laurier Conference on Business and Professional Ethics, the focus will be on the area of education and training in the ethical practice of professions.

The organizing committee invites papers, detailed abstracts or proposals for workshops, seminars and panel discussions on issues pertaining to Ethical Training and Education. Possible topics for submissions include: Can ethical behavior be taught? What is the role of character in ethics training and education? Can professional schools set selection criteria to screen for ethical standards? Should admission to professional practice and licensing reflect ethical concerns? Should ethics be taught? All submissions will be peer reviewed. Selected papers will be published. Please send 3 copies of a finished paper (20 pages, double spaced) or detailed abstract or proposal (2-5 pages, double spaced) clearly defining the objectives, points to be covered, as well as a short biographical note by November 3, 1997 to: Dr. Kim Morouney, School of Business and Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University, 75 University Avenue W., Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3C5; phone: (519) 884-1970; e-mail: kmoroune@mach1.wlu.ca.

The Society for Health and Human Values will be holding its Spring Regional Meeting, April 17-18, 1998 at Youngstown State University, Youngstown, Ohio.

The theme is "Whose Ethics? Which Medicine? The Tacit and Explicit Development of a Medical Ethic." The conference will consider two types of questions: 1. The Origins of Medical Ethics: Where does medical ethics come from? Is there an implicit or tacit ethic of medicine? Is so, does ethics vary according to profession and specialty? 2. Knowledge of Medical Ethics: Who knows medical ethics? Is it the province of a particular kind of professional or type of person? Or is biomedical ethics a matter of common sense and common knowledge? Paper proposals should be sent in the form of an extended abstract, 500-1,000 words. Please submit 3 copies by October 1, 1997 to: Jody Chidester, Center for Medical Ethics, 3708 Fifth Avenue, Suite 300, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.

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.

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 November 15th.