Summer 2009
David Smith
What's cooking in bioethics
Steve Latham
Complicity with past wrongs: examples from bioethics
Roger Worthington
Ethics, Professionalism, and Questions of Culture
Brian Scassellati
Social Robots and Human Social Development
Jack Hughes
Society and Health Care: Obligations, fairness, and limits
Sandy Alfano
Ethical Considerations in Human Subjects Research
David Linsenmeier
Ethical Issues in the Pharmaceutical Industry
Mark Mercurio
Ethical Issues in Extreme Prematurity
Diane Krause & Karen Lebacqz
Introduction to Embryonic Stem Cells and
Inducible Pluripotent stem cells &
Stem Cells: Getting the ethics straight
Becca Levy/Pil Chung
Age Stereotypes and Public Health
Scott Long
Evolution of hospice in the United States
Shep Nuland
How Patients, Families, and Doctors
Approach the End of Life
Tom Duffy
Reflections on Portraits of an Illness
Douglas Bruce
Ethical Concerns at the Intersection of
Addiction and Criminal Justice:
Why Don't We Treat Addiction in Prison?
Paul Kirwin
A View of Aging Through Poetry
Erika Blacksher
Ethical Issues Raised by Healthy Behavior Programs
Gretchen Berland
The Use of Film as a Means to Understand
the Experiences of Patients
Paul Waldau
Animal Ethics
Wendell Wallach
The Road to Singularity: Robot Minds and Human Ethics
Jonathan Borak
Introduction to Risk Assessment
and its Ethical Underpinnings
Pasquale Patrizio
Postponement and Preservation of Fertility:
Ethical and social implications
Bob Levine
Origins of the ethical norms and principles for
research involving human subjects
and
Ethics of placebo controls in research
involving human subjects
Shelly Kagan
Applied Ethics and the Distinction between
Killing and Letting Die
Leora Kahn
June
Bioethics and Human Dignity, Karen Lebacqz
“Human dignity” has become a widely used term in bioethics. It is also a controversial term. Some say it is meaningless; others say it is essential to resolving bioethical debates. This course will examine some of the uses of “human dignity” in contemporary bioethics with a view to how the term functions, what it means, whether it helps or hinders discussion, and how its grounding in religious affirmations and political contexts impacts its uses and meanings. We will then look at two specific arenas in which “dignity” has framed bioethics debates: “death with dignity” and questions regarding human enhancement.
Basic Issues in Bioethics, David Smith
This seminar is designed as a survey of classic issues in biomedical ethics; it will be broad in scope. Issues to be discussed include experimentation with human subjects, genetics and new technologies for reproduction, care for the dying, transplantation, and justice in health care. Key readings will be available on-line. We will make supplementary use of Steinbock, London and Arras, Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine [7th edition] so it may be handy to have that book. Because the book is so expensive, we will make copies of relevant readings available in another way.
Public Health Ethics, Julius Landwirth
This seminar series will examine the ethical implications of some of the major areas of public health practice and policy. Seminars will be co-facilitated by Dr. Landwirth and a guest expert in the particular topic under discussion. The format will be interactive. Each session will open with a brief presentation by one of the interns of the group reading assignment for that session followed by comments from the facilitators and open discussion. Topics to be covered include: analytical framework for public health ethics, ethical aspects of preparedness planning for public health emergencies, the genome and public health, mandatory vaccination of children and health care workers, environment and public health ethics, public health and socioeconomic health disparities.
Research Ethics, Carrie Thiessen
This course will provide an overview of historical, legal, ethical, and practical issues related to the conduct of clinical trials with human subjects in the United States and abroad. In addition, students will develop an appreciation for the relationship between empirical and normative bioethics. Each class session will involve discussion of readings and key concepts and an analysis of one or two cases. Students will have the opportunity to attend an institutional review board meeting and to share their experiences with their classmates.
End of Life Issues, Mark Mercurio, Scott Long, Tom Duffy
This seminar series will develop themes involved in each speaker's particular areas of interest. Each of the leaders of this seminar will have given the morning lecture to all interns shortly prior to leading two seminar sessions, so the seminars will build on these lectures. Possible topics include but are not limited to: what makes a good death, conflicts between patients’ rights and physicians’ rights, assisted suicide, balancing honesty in hope when talking to terminally ill patients, conflicts between religion and medicine, and issues particular to infant deaths.
Full Summer (June and July)
Bioethics & the Media, Carol Pollard & Jeff Stryker
This seminar offers a chance to reflect upon, and contribute to, coverage of bioethical issues in the popular press. Students will examine a sampling of bioethics coverage, evaluating news coverage and commentary in terms of fairness, accuracy and salience. The seminar will consider how bioethics coverage is changing in light of the rapidly morphing media landscape. Participants will critique media coverage of bioethical topics. Are questions of values parsed clearly and addressed properly? Are scientific uncertainties represented fairly? Are potential biases or conflicts of interests identified? Do the experts quoted have any expertise? Are the slopes too slippery, the herrings too red? The seminar will consider the purveyors of bioethical reportage as well as its content and audience. What are the best news sources for keeping up on bioethics topics? Where does the press turn when looking for experts in “bioethics?” What ethical demands of journalism as a profession have an impact on coverage of bioethical topics?
Considerable seminar time will be devoted to student presentations. Students will choose among a variety of modest assignments.
Bioethics in Film & Fiction, Steve Latham
This weekly seminar will run throughout June and July. Over the course of the summer, we will view about 6 bioethics-related films (e.g., The Sea Within, Gattaca, Extreme Measures) and read two or three bioethics-related novels (e.g., Frankenstein, Never Let Me Go). The “fiction” weeks will be separated by two or three “film” weeks, to give everyone time to finish the novels. Each week, we will meet as a group for discussion of the treatment of bioethical themes by that week’s film or novel. Interns should feel free to drop into and out of this discussion group over the summer, as their schedules permit. Suggestions for films and novels gladly entertained!
July
Methods in Bioethics, Karen Lebacqz
The purpose of this course is to examine different methods used in bioethics, with attention to the strengths and weaknesses of each method. The readings and class lectures will not always coincide, as the lectures deal with methods used within the field of ethics, whereas the readings include other fields such as decision theory in economics and legal cases. Thus, the questions asked for each session cover both the readings and the class lectures. By the end of the course, students should have a feel for the language and approach of at least five different ways of doing bioethics, and a sense of the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches.
Bioethics & the Law, Steve Latham
This seminar will examine the basic treatment by American law of some major issues in contemporary biomedical ethics. Readings will include standard legal materials such as cases and regulations, a number of quasi-legal sources such as government commission reports and institutional guidelines, and some academic articles. No familiarity with legal materials is assumed; indeed, this seminar is designed for students with no background in American law. For each of the topics listed below, the instructor will offer a very broad and necessarily cursory overview of the area, and then will focus seminar discussion on one or two sub-issues to be addressed in detail. While the focus will be American law, some comparative-law readings will be supplied in order to bring possible alternative approaches to light.
Topics: Basics of the US legal system; abortion; assisted reproduction; stem-cell research; organ donation; research on human subjects; end-of-life care and aid in dying; and public health law.
Living with Disability, Moira O’Neill
This 8-session seminar series goes beyond the more common bioethical considerations of avoiding disability to examining the lived experiences of people with disabilities. The discussion will strive to underscore the potential all people hold and the possibility of a different but OK “normal.” Applying the social or social-environmental model of disability that suggests disability is caused by societal obstacles including social attitudes, built or structural barriers, and other poorly designed and discriminating processes, participants will be exposed to the day-to-day lives and dilemmas of people with disabilities. The dialogue will start with a legal framework and then range from the very intimate experience of tube feeding at McDonald’s and sex in a group home to bureaucratic parenting and the dangers of an ill-informed criminal justice system. The series finishes by examining the bioethical principles in research of human subjects…at the front end of research, the funding end…with a look at how an aged comedian has upset a whole bunch of people.
Bioethics, Religion, & Environment,
Christy Peppard
This seminar will explore selected aspects of contemporary environmental ethics over the course of seven sessions meeting Tues/Thurs from 5-7 p.m., beginning July 2. The first two sessions will be devoted to framing questions (What is religious ethics? How is it a relevant approach to environmental issues? How are bioethics and environmental ethics related?) and to different ways of evaluating the relationship between humans and the earth. The next four sessions will focus on water and climate change (two sessions per topic). The final session will wrap up loose ends, look retrospectively at the terrain covered in the course, and suggest directions for future study. Case studies, brief readings, group breakout exercises, and occasional reflection papers will be part of the course.
Yale University’s Center for Bioethics
2009 Summer Interns
Philosophy & Biology
San Diego State University, San Diego, CA
Year of Graduation: 2010
Political Science
Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
Year of Graduation: 2010
Biology
Columbia University
Year of Graduation: 2011
B.A. Political Science - Health Policy (2010)
M.P.H. Health Management (2011)
Yale University, New Haven, CT
Medical Student
Keele University School of Medicine, Staffordshire, UK
Year of Graduation: 2010
Bioethics in Cross Cultural Perspective
University of Connecticut
Year of Graduation: 2011
Political Science with Public Health Policy concentration
Yale University, New Haven, CT
Year of Graduation: 2011
Vikas Gampa
Molecular Genetics & Philosophy
Ohio State University
Year of Graduation: 2010
Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Graduate Degree Candidate
Yale University School of Nursing, New Haven, CT
Year of Graduation: 2011
Jennifer Guyton
Political Science
Yale University, New Haven, CT
Year of Graduation: 2012
Maria Han
Medical Student
Yale University, New Haven, CT
Year of Graduation: 2010
History & Philosophy
Biola University, La Mirada, CA
Year of Graduation: 2009
Medical Student
Keele University School of Medicine, Staffordshire, UK
Year of Graduation: 2010
Eun Young Hwang
Master of Arts in Religion candidate
Yale Divinity School, New Haven, CT
Year of Graduation: 2010
Vanessa Jackson
Medical Student
Keele University School of Medicine, Staffordshire, UK
Year of Graduation:
Robert Y. Joynt
Philosophy
New York University, New York, NY
Year of Graduation: 2009 (December)
Julia Kiewit
Philosophy & Political Science
Biola University, La Mirada, CA
Year of Graduation: 2009
Fellow
John Jay Institute for Faith, Society, & Law
Beginning Fall 2009
Law Student
University of Minnesota Law School
Year of Graduation: 2011
Melissa Jane Kurtz
Joint Graduate Degree Candidate
Yale University School of Nursing & Yale Divinity School, New Haven, CT
Year of Graduation: 2011
Lauren Lefebvre
English Literature
Depauw University, Greencastle, IN
Year of Graduation: 2009
Craig Luekens
Master of Divinity
Yale Divinity School
Year of Graduation: 2008
Anna McNamara
Medical Student
Keele University School of Medicine, Staffordshire, UK
Year of Graduation, 2010
Theology
Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA
Year of Graduation: 2009
Law Student
St Louis University School of Law, St Louis, MO
Year of Graduation: 2012
Philosophy & Spanish
Transylvania University, Lexington, KY
Year of Graduation: 2009
Master of Liberal Arts candidate
St. John’s College, Annapolis, MD
Year of Graduation: 2011
Chizoba N. Nwachukwu
Medical Student
Ulyanovsk State University Medical School, Ulyanovsk, Russia
Year of Graduation: 2012
Obinna T. Nwankwo
Medical Student
Ulyanovsk State University Medical School, Ulyanovsk, Russia
Year of Graduation: 2012
Benjamin Ortiz
Religious Studies
Yale University, New Haven, CT
Year of Graduation: 2011
Law Student
University of Edinburgh School of Law
Second year
Master of Arts in Philosophy Candidate with Bioethics concentration
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Year of Graduation: 2010
Political Science
Yale University, New Haven, CT
Year of Graduation: 2010
Biological Basis of Behavior
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Year of Graduation: 2010
Neuroscience and Behavior
Columbia University
Year of Graduation: 2011
Law Student
University of South Carolina School of Law, Columbia, SC
Year of Graduation: 2009
Young Joo Shim
Master of Laws & Candidate for Ph.D. in Law
Graduate School of Hanyang University School, Korea
Fourth year
Women’s Health & Adult Health Nurse Practitioner Graduate Degree Candidate
Yale University School of Nursing, New Haven, CT
Year of Graduation: 2011
Health Studies
Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Year of Graduation: 2011
Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Health and Social Care
Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, England
Philosophy & Biology
University of Maryland, Baltimore County, MD
Year of Graduation: 2011
