ethics news & views

Feb 17 | New Ethical Issues at the End of Life

Daniel P. Sulmasy, OFM, MD, PhD, will speak 4-6pm Feb 17 on "Sedation, Hydration, and Alimentation: New Ethical Issues at the End of Life" as part of the Interdisciplinary Program in Bioethics. The lecture will be in the Rita Anne Rollins Room, 8th Floor, School of Public Health.

This Visiting Scholar Lecture is jointly sponsored by Emory University Health Sciences and the Center for Ethics.

Sulmasy is Chair of the John J. Conley Department of Ethics, Saint Vincents Hospital and Medical Center, and Director of the Bioethics Institute at New York Medical College.

It has recently been proposed that since patients may legitimately refuse artificial hydration and nutrition, and since there is a consensus that so-called 'terminal sedation' is sometimes morally appropriate, these practices may be morally and legally combined to assist patients in dying. In this talk, Dr. Sulmasy will explore the definitions of euthanasia, suicide, and assisted suicide, and describe the conditions under which there is a moral and legal consensus that life sustaining treatments may be withheld from patients. He will then explore whether these newly proposed practices fall within the scope of that consensus, or represent a departure from accepted norms of medical practice.

Sulmasy, a Franciscan Friar, holds the Sisters of Charity Chair in Ethics at St. Vincent’s Hospital—Manhattan, and serves as Professor of Medicine and Director of the Bioethics Institute of New York Medical College. He received his AB and MD degrees from Cornell University and completed his residency, chief residency, and post-doctoral fellowship in General Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He received his PhD in philosophy from Georgetown University in 1995, where he served as Director of the Center for Clinical Bioethics and Senior Research Scholar of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics. He is a Fellow of the Hastings Center and member of the Board of Advisors of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities.

He is the author of a book on spirituality for health care professionals, entitled, The Healer’s Calling, and is co-editor of the text, Methods in Medical Ethics. He serves as editor-in-chief of the journal, Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics. His numerous articles have appeared in medical, philosophical, and theological journals and he has lectured widely both in the US and abroad.

[ Posted by Chance Hunter at February 3, 2005 11:04 AM | More Health Science Ethics articles | More Public Events articles ]

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