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Health Care Consortium Conference is a Hit

The 10th Annual Conference of the Health Care Ethics Consortium of Georgia (HCECG), planned as an exceptional educational event and as a joyous celebration, truly accomplished both. With a dual focus on both the history that serves as the foundation of bioethics and a glimpse of what may face us in the future, the conference, A Decade of Ethics Experience: Looking Back, Looking Forward, held March 31 to April 1, offered a discussion of past successes and failures and speculated on future challenges.

As keynote speaker Dr. Albert Jonsen, Emeritus Professor of Ethics in Medicine, University of Washington and founder of modern bioethics, illustrated the dilemmas that have faced health care in the pastusing a series of images from the movie Frankenstein. With this as a foundation, his presentation at the evening banquet stimulated the audience to consider the ethical challenges to come.

In an enjoyable and informative discussion on “Past Development and Future Directions in Law and Health Care Ethics,” Charity Scott, Professor of Law, Georgia State University, summarized a thoughtful history of the relationship between the law and health care ethics with one saying, “Omigod, how could anyone have THOUGHT that?!!? How could they have DONE that?!!?” She concluded with a glimpse of those issues that currently plague us and continue to do so in the future.

In a "readers theater" presentation, three actors from Actor’s Express read several scenes from the play "Blue/Orange" by Joe Penhall. Taking place in a modern National Health System psychiatric hospital in London, the play portrays the story of a young black patient confronted by two white doctors, a junior psychiatrist and his senior attending. Focusing on issues of diversity and their impact on the patient/doctor relationship, the audience dialogued directly with the actors about their characters and their relationships to each other.

Using a panel that included a theologian (Thomas Thangaraj, ThD), a physician/researcher (Otis Brawley, MD), and a physician/educator (George Rust, MD, MPH), attendees explored the concepts of diversity, disparity and pluralism within the world and particularly within the health care setting.

Evaluating the conference with words like “excellent conference” and “a truly outstanding day,” 130 conference attendees rated this year’s program as one of the best –- a truly outstanding event for HCECG as it concludes its first decade.

[ Posted by Karen Trotochaud at June 24, 2004 02:19 PM | More HCECG articles | More Health Science Ethics articles | More Public Events articles ]

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