Special Topics (June 1-5, 2009)

In addition to the plenary lectures offered from the main podium to all participants, the IBC also includes accredited sessions that we have titled “Special Topics.” These topics are chosen in response to issues that are currently under discussion and perceived to be of broad interest to a large number of participants. They are more informal than the plenary lectures, with give and take between the presenter and attendees, and provide an opportunity for a spirited, yet directed, discussion of the topic at hand. CME credits are available for those who attend each session.

This year’s Special Topics will include:

Ethics Committees

In this session the Director of Georgetown University’s Center for Clinical Bioethics, Carol R. Taylor, R.N., Ph.D., will describe the current status of institutional ethics committees and ethics consultation. Resources for guiding ethical reasoning in health care institutions will be provided and an interactive format will allow participants to raise questions to the group and offer successful strategies.

Feminist Bioethics

Rebecca Kukla, Ph.D., will offer this Special Topic. She will present an overview of feminist theory and offer examples of how viewing bioethics through its lens can provide insight. Special attention is paid to the concept of androcentrism — the idea that social norms, institutions, and structures are centered on experiences that are paradigmatic to men rather than women. Tenets of feminism are applied to some central issues in health care, including women’s reproduction and assumptions about the roles of care vs. cure.

Human Stem Cells: A Global Perspective

Since the initial development of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) in 1998, the techniques used to produce such cells have become a topic of serious public debate in various cultural, religious, and political communities, as well as in the literature of philosophy, theology, medicine, and law. This Special Topic session offered by LeRoy Walters, Ph.D., will critically examine the ethical and public-policy debate on hESCs. Three or four policy options will be identified and, with the aid of color-coded maps, the policies adopted by various nations and multiple states in the U.S. will be reviewed. The ethical arguments underlying the policy options will also be examined. The possible use of induced pluripotent stem cells as alternatives to human embryonic stem cells will also be explored.

Bioethics Movie Matinee

Participants in this session offered by Laura Bishop, Ph.D., will be able to recognize ethical issues as presented in popular culture and media. The program will highlight new and classic audiovisual teaching tools for undergraduate/graduate and professional classrooms and for continuing education for ethics committees, institutional review boards, and/or practicing professionals. Selections are made based on the focus of plenary sessions, critical topics in the public eye, and ongoing areas of research and study in the field of bioethics. Brief commentary between segments helps to educate attendees about how the situation or case discussed in the segment fits within the context of the history and ongoing developments in bioethics.

Disability as Human Variation, Cultural Construction, and Bioethical Issue

Session offered by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Ph.D.: In the climate fostering diversity and minority rights that has been encouraged by the larger civil rights movement, new ways of considering disability have emerged in U.S. as disabled people have entered the public sphere much more fully in the last 30 years due to a newly accessible built environment, positive disability identity politics, and legal mandates for integration. This presentation extends our current understanding of disability from a focus on issues of medicine and health into a broad consideration of disability as a civil rights issue, a minority identity, a sociological formation, an historic community, a diversity group, and a category of critical analysis in culture and the arts. The presentation explores such aspects as quality of life, empathy, sexuality, eugenics, surgical normalization, and the cultural work of language and metaphor in relation to disability.

Last updated on September 15, 2009 - Feedback