Dear Friends of the Bioethics Program,
March and April 2008 marked two important transitions: the 7th
anniversary of The Bioethics Program and the 1st anniversary of the Union
Graduate College and Mount Sinai School of Medicine partnership. Our program has grown from an experiment in
on-line graduate education with a small class of 7 “bioneers,” to a thriving
internationally recognized leader in the field. We now have about three-dozen
students in the program (about 4 in 10
are clinicians, 2 in 10 in dual degree programs in law, medicine and public
health, while the rest come from a
variety of backgrounds). We now offer
three certificate programs (bioethics and health policy, clinical ethics,
research ethics) and have registered dual degree programs with graduate and
professional schools in law, philosophy, public health and social work. We, once again, have an articulation
agreement with the University of Pennsylvania Bioethics program. The Penn
bioethics students seeking clinical ethics training take our graduate
certificate in clinical ethics instead of Penn electives as part of their
bioethics program.
Responding to the needs of the broader field, The Bioethics Program
has hosted a conference annually: Ethics and Epidemics (2004), The Ethics of Bioethics (2005), 8th Annual Global Forum for
Research Ethics: Developing Research Ethics Infrastructure (2007) and the 1st Annual HEC Swap Shop (2007)—which will
be followed next year by another hospital ethics case “swap shop” at Mount
Sinai. In 2008 we co-hosted, with Union
College, the 11th Annual
National Undergraduate Bioethics Conference (NUBC), a conference that, like
many others that we’ve hosted, was sponsored by the American Society for Bioethics
and Humanities (ASBH).
The Bioethics Program was exceptionally well represented at the
October ASBH meeting: our faculty served as featured chairs, speakers and
panelists in a half-dozen sessions. The
best part of the ASBH meeting for everyone from The Bioethics Program, however,
was the annual get together, when two dozen or so faculty, students, and alumni
gathered for our reunion. We now can boast of the accomplishments of 31 alumni
who are serving on hospital ethics committees, ethics consult services,
institutional review boards, and working in every area of health care, health
care administration and health policy, including major research
institutes—except for those advancing their education by earning doctorates and
medical degrees at Harvard, Mount Sinai and the University of Florida.
Martin Strosberg, a
pioneer in international bioethics education, is directing a million dollar NIH
Fogarty initiative. Now in its fifth
year, the initiative has enjoyed remarkable success in building research ethics
infrastructure in Eastern Europe. Together
with his co-principal Eugenijus Gefenas
of Vilnius University, Strosberg received a six-figure grant from the Wellcome
Trust to support a Global Forum on our specialty: building research ethics
infrastructure.
Our
faculty published so many books and articles this year that listing them would
take too much space. A few, however,
should not pass unremarked: two leading
publishers, Blackwell and Oxford, published major guides to bioethics in 2007. I am delighted to report that Bonnie Steinbock edited The Oxford Handbook of Bioethics and that Rosamond Rhodes edited the
Blackwell Guide to Medical Ethics. The Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal dedicated
an issue to a paper by two faculty members, Robert Baker and Laurence
McCullough: six leading bioethicists commented: Beauchamp, Fox, Jonsen,
Schmidt, Sugarman and Veatch. Also Alicia Ouellette, who
sued NY defending same-sex couples’ rights to marry, has a neat article, “Moral Reasoning in
Judicial Decisions on Same-Sex Marriage.”
The major challenge and opportunity of the past
year has been the partnership with the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Although
there have been some teething pains, Mount Sinai and the Morchand Center offer
wonderful opportunities in competency based-education, OSCEs and the use of standardized
patients. Working closely with Ilene Wilets of Mount Sinai, an IRB
expert, we are designing new practica and OSCEs in research ethics. Alumnus, Sean Philpott, Policy
and Ethics Officer for the Global Campaign for Microbicides and former Executive
Editor of the American Journal of
Bioethics, now an associate faculty member, is also assisting us. Devra Cohen-Tigor former president of Association
of Standardized Patient Educators and Nada
Gligorov are revising our on-site
practica and enhanced capstone experiences.
Robert McCauley,
who succeeds Robert
Orr as Director of Clinical Ethics, Fletcher Allen Health Care and the
University of Vermont, has joined us to explore new possibilities in clinical
ethics education. Jane Oppenlander, a
statistician, is developing our empirical bioethics course. Robert N.
Swidler, editor, the New York State Bar Association Health Law Journal will be working with Jane Greenlaw, who serves on the New York State Taskforce on Life
and the Law to mentor students on
the health policy track.
Our
seven-year and one-year anniversaries celebrate a remarkable record of
achievement and our new partnership opens a wealth of opportunities. We will do our utmost to keep you informed
of developments as The Bioethics Program grows.
If you are interested in finding out more about our program or
bioethics, drop us a note and please visit our continually-being-upgraded
Website.
Sincerely,
Robert Baker
Director
www.bioethics.union.edu
