2017 Seminars

June Seminars

  • Personhood and Personal Identity in Bioethics

    You needn’t wade too far into bioethics to find yourself mired in philosophical questions about the nature of personhood and personal identity. Is a fetus, or someone in a permanent vegetative state, a person, worthy of the same moral consideration as you or I? Is a patient in the early stages of Alzheimer’s the same person as the one who remains when dementia sets in? In this seminar, we will tackle these and other questions by examining their philosophical roots. In the first half of the seminar, we will take an in-depth look at several philosophical theories of personhood and personal identity. Then, in the second half of the seminar, we will use these theories to help us resolve – or at least better understand – some difficult bioethical questions.

    Matthew Leisinger

    PhD Candidate, Department of Philosophy, Yale University
    Yale Graduate Fellow in Applied Ethics, Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics
    Originally from Canada, Matt completed a BA in Philosophy at The University of Western Ontario before entering the PhD program in the Department of Philosophy at Yale. Now in his 5th year at Yale, Matt is completing a dissertation on early modern theories of personhood and moral agency, focusing in particular on the views of John Locke and Ralph Cudworth.

  • Medical Ethics During Conflict, War & Genocide

    This seminar will introduce students to medical ethics during times of conflict, war and genocide. Through the examination of real historical case studies, we will discuss major ethical dilemmas that medical professionals may and do encounter in extreme circumstances. These case studies will be carefully selected to represent recurring themes and to provide the students with an entry point into broader ethical issues in war and armed conflict. Readings will include the works of leading scholars in military medical ethics and the ethics of war.
    By analyzing these texts and case studies, this seminar will attempt to respond to the following questions: Do medical ethics in times of war/conflict differ from those in times of peace? If so, how and why? Similarly, do professional medical ethics differ from ‘normal’ ethics? What common themes can be traced across the history of medical ethics in conflict?

    Sheena M. Eagan

    Title: Adjunct Assistant Professor
    Affiliation: California State University East Bay
    Sheena Eagan received her Ph.D. in the Medical Humanities from the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch, specializing in medical ethics and the history of medicine. Prior to doctoral studies, Dr. Eagan completed a Master of Public Health at the Uniformed Services University. Her research and teaching focus on ethics with a specialization in medicine and a subfield focus of military medical ethics.

    Zohar Lederman

    Title: PhD candidate
    Affiliation: Centre for Biomedical Ethics, Long Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore
    Zohar Lederman is a medical doctor and a bioethics PhD candidate at the National University of Singapore. His PhD focuses on the ethics of One Health. His other areas of interest include: end of life care, the dual loyalty dilemma, ethics of infectious diseases and public health ethics.
  • Military Bioethics - what's all the fuss about?

    War and conflict are generally seen as bad things and we need less of them in the world. However, sometimes there might be a case for the need for war - to avoid genocide for example. In this seminar, we will examine two main areas - firstly what are the ethics around war and conflict, and secondly what does this mean for doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals. This look at military bioethics will also examine the competing loyalties that medical practitioners face in many fields, not just those in the military. There will be plenty of opportunities for students to look at case studies and think about what they would do in the same situation. Plenty of chocolate will be provided in class.

    Revd. Dr. Nikki Coleman

    Visiting Research Fellow, The Hastings Centre-Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics (2015-2017)
    Research Associate, UNSW Canberra Space
    Research Associate, Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society
    Nikki Coleman is a Military Space Bioethicist (which makes for a great business card). She loves teaching and sharing her passion for the complexities associated with war and conflict, new technologies, consent, and medical experimentation on military personnel. Nikki's research includes work in the area of medical experimentation on military personnel, genomics, selective conscientious objection, moral injury and PTSD. In her spare time, Nikki is a hot air balloon pilot (but sadly won't be bringing her Balloon to Yale this summer).

  • Reproductive Ethics

    This seminar is structured as recognition that the issues surrounding human reproduction are not limited to nine months of pregnancy and the abortion debate, rather it is central to the health of populations.

    We will examine the ethical dilemmas and challenges across the lifespan from preconception to adulthood and considering the biological, social and psychological aspects as well as the real-world implications for public health and resource allocation. Some topics include: The dilemma of the maternal-fetal conflict; life-threatening maternal complications and whose life do you save; assisted reproductive technologies and fertility; high risk pregnancies including fetal anomalies and mortality risks; surrogacy and reproductive labour for sale; uterus transplantation and implications of emerging imaging technology on prenatal attachment.

    This course is designed for both clinicians and non-health professionals. The first class will include a foundational background on the biology of human reproduction in a way that the general public will understand.

    This seminar will be aimed towards applied ethics – In other words, what should we do to address the human condition in the context of reproduction. As such the dialogue across professional disciplines and cultural insights towards meaningful appreciation of the dilemmas is encouraged.

    Format: Seminar style, group discussion and case based learning formats.

    Dr. Ramona Fernandez

    Adjunct Assistant Professor, Counselling Psychology at Western University, Canada
    Psychotherapist- Private practice at Rebirth Wellness Center, Canada
    Vice-President, Association of Death Education and Counseling, USA
    Ramona is currently a faculty member and researcher at Western University in Canada and serves as Vice-President on the board of directors for the international Association of Death Education and Counseling. She is clinical counsellor/psychotherapist by profession with a Master’s degree in Counselling Psychology, Certificate in Grief and Bereavement and an interdisciplinary PhD in Health Professional Education. She also holds an international certification and Fellow in Thanatology with specialization in bereavement counselling for reproduction and perinatal loss. She is a graduate of Yale University’s Bioethics Summer Institute (2013), was a Visiting Scholar at The Hastings Center and did a clinical ethics fellowship at St. Joseph’s Healthcare London & London Health Sciences Center in Canada and served previously on the Perinatal Ethics Council at St. Joseph’s. Her clinical, academic and research work spans the disciplines of counselling psychology/social work, thanatology, reproductive medicine, bioethics and biopolitics.

  • Ethical Issues in Genetics

    This seminar examines our fascination with genetic technology and the seductive power and promise of genetic engineering towards a "better world". We will take a journey from pre-conception genetics that help families understand familial risks and "cures" in making families to the preservation of life in cancer genetics to the rapidly emerging forefront of genetic technologies that explore enhancement, chimeras and the question of genetic privacy.

    Some topics include: Pre-conception and prenatal genetic testing; 3-parent embryos; (micro)eugenics and selective pre-implantation genetic diagnosis; cord-blood banking; saviour siblings; cancer genetics; cross-species chimeras; genetic enhancement; and the question of genetic privacy.

    This seminar is intended as an introduction to ethical issues in genetics and will be taught in a way that is approachable for both clinicians and those that have no science background. I encourage you to come discuss the meaning of life at the very basic building blocks of life.

    Dr. Ramona Fernandez

    Adjunct Assistant Professor- Counselling Psychology, Western University, Canada
    Psychotherapist - Private Practice at Rebirth Wellness Center, Canada
    Vice-President - Association of Death Education and Counseling, Canada
    Ramona is currently a faculty member and researcher at Western University in Canada and serves as Vice-President on the board of directors for the international Association of Death Education and Counseling. She is clinical counsellor/psychotherapist by profession with a Master’s degree in Counselling Psychology, Certificate in Grief and Bereavement and an interdisciplinary PhD in Health Professional Education. She also holds an international certification and Fellow in Thanatology with specialization in bereavement counselling for reproduction and perinatal loss. She is a graduate of Yale University’s Bioethics Summer Institute (2013), was a Visiting Scholar at The Hastings Center and did a clinical ethics fellowship at St. Joseph’s Healthcare London & London Health Sciences Center in Canada and served previously on the Perinatal Ethics Council at St. Joseph’s. Her clinical, academic and research work spans the disciplines of counselling psychology/social work, thanatology, reproductive medicine, bioethics and biopolitics.

  • Environmental Ethics

    What is the “environment” and who, or what, is worthy of moral consideration in environmental ethics? Elephants? Trees? Rocks? How is human health related to ecosystem health? What are alternative ways – both human-centered and biocentric – of thinking about and living in our environment? The purpose of this course is to provide an introduction to core questions and moral frameworks in environmental ethics and, simultaneously, to allow students to explore critical contemporary issues including but not limited to: the moral status of ecosystems; biodiversity loss; global climate change; the relationship between race, gender, poverty, and the environment; and intersections with other bioethics issues such as animal welfare, global health, and food. Group discussion, brief readings, case studies, and interactive breakout exercises will be part of this course. No prior experience in environmental ethics is required – participants will be encouraged to be exploratory, inquisitive, and interactive in their learning.

    Matthew Riley

    Lecturer - Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and Yale Divinity School
    Matt is a Lecturer at the Yale Divinity School and Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Matt is also engaged as a Research Associate at the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale and he serves as Book Reviews Editor for the journal Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Environment. Broadly speaking, Matt approaches bioethics from an interdisciplinary standpoint and he is interested in the intersection of environmental ethics, animal ethics, and religious perspectives on bioethics.

  • Personhood and Ableist Narratives in Bioethics and Disability Studies

    In the Body Silent Robert F. Murphy wrote that disability is a social malady. What truly ails people with a disability in Murphy's estimation is not a given bodily deficit but rather the social response to it. Thus disability calls into question how we define humanity and value lives that are deemed worth living. Via diverse narratives students will be encouraged to think about the degree to which ableism is built into American social structure and our health care system. Issues such as bodily integrity, growth attenuation, end of life issues, autonomy, and the elimination of disease will be discussed. PLEASE NOTE! As a very special event, Dr. Joseph Fins will run one session in this seminar on **June 13th.** Students will be required to read Helmut Dubiel's book, "Deep Within the Brain," in advance, and come prepared for this very special dialogue. The book is 129 pages, but it is not a hard read.

    William J. Peace

    Visiting professor, Syracuse University
    William J. Peace is a cultural anthropologist (PhD Columbia 1992) by training. Peace is both a scholar and advocate for disability rights and has published in a wide range of peer reviewed journals. He also maintains the widely read blog Bad Cripple.

  • Bioethics & the Law

    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 include the basics of the US legal system; abortion; end-of-life care and aid-in-dying; assisted reproduction; mandated vaccination; state power to quarantine; and standards of determining death.

    Steve Latham, PhD, JD

    Director, Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics
    Steve has been Director of the Bioethics Center since 2011, having served as Deputy Director since 2008. For the previous nine years, he was Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Health Law & Policy at Quinnipiac University School of Law. Before entering academia full-time, he served as Director of Ethics Standards at the American Medical Association and as secretary to its Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs. He was for several years a member of Connecticut’s Stem Cell Reseach Advisory Committee, and served for three years on the board of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, which gave him its distinguished service award. He has done clinical ethics consultation with the Pediatric Ethics Committee of Yale-New Haven’s Children’s Hospital; currently chairs Yale’s Human Subjects Committee (its social/behavioral IRB); and serves on the Medical Review Board of Connecticut’s Department of Children and Families. His 100+ publications on health law and bioethics have appeared in journals and law reviews including JAMA, NEJM, the American Journal of Law and Medicine, the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, and the Journal of Legal Medicine. He has been book review editor of the American Journal of Bioethics, and is currently a contributing editor for the Hastings Center Report. His co-edited book, The American Medical Ethics Revolution (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press) was selected by Choice as one of the “top academic books of 2000.”

  • Biotech Law & Patent Issues : The Global Biotech Business

    Biotechnological inventions are raising novel ethical, legal questions addressing not only scientists, but governments, legislators and also the public. This seminar will offer a deeper understanding of recent international challenges by comparing the US and EU regulations of biotechnology industry and markets. The interactive course will explain complex ethical, legal and business dilemmas discussing the most recent famous biotech (IP) patent cases. The seminar will focus on the ethical arguments and grounds which have been taken into account and evaluated by different legal systems, courts, authorities facing similar multidisciplinary problems worldwide. Students will be expected to complete brief case studies and readings prior to each session.

    Csaba Bardossy, JD

    Juris Doctor, Faculty of Law, Pazmany Peter Catholic University
    Contracts Associate at PRA Health Sciences
    Csaba is a 2012 graduate of the Summer Bioethics Institute and a former Visiting Scholar at Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics with a scholarship from the European Union’s excellence program. He joined in some comparative law seminars at Yale Law School during the first semester of 2013/2014. He also studied medicine at Semmelweis University of Budapest and was an erasmus scholar at Bonn University. As a lawyer he returned to teach his seminar in 2015 & 2016. He has worked for PwC Legal and for an NGO at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, he is currently working for PRA Health Sciences dealing with legal issues and negotiating contracts worldwide.

  • Introduction to research ethics

    This seminar will cover the principles of research ethics, looking at historical examples of ethical violations and how these led to the development of human and animal research ethics committees. The seminar will provide practical tips on applying and reviewing research ethics applications, in addition to considering which normative ethical theories are prioritised when evaluating research protocols. Students will be asked to discuss how research is ethically reviewed in their own country and any recent examples of unethical research.

    Evie Kendal

    Evie Kendal
    Lecturer
    School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine
    Monash University
    Victoria, Australia
    Evie Kendal is a lecturer at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. She currently holds a Master of Bioethics, an Honours degree in English literature and cultural studies and a Bachelor of Biomedical Science. Her doctoral studies are focused on feminist bioethics and the representation of emerging reproductive biotechnologies in literature and film. Evie is the former human research ethics committee coordinator of a private hospital in Melbourne and teaches bioethics to philosophy, health, biomedical and medical students at Monash.

  • Bioethics in Literature

    This seminar will look at how bioethical issues are portrayed in literature. It will consider the impact of narrative medicine and real and fictional case studies on bioethical debate, with a particular focus on the "yuck" factor, moral spectatorship, and philosophical theories of the imagination. NB: this course will involve 20-50 pages of additional reading per seminar so it is appropriate for students interested in committing to this extra reading load. Readings will be made available in early May so students can get a head start.

    Evie Kendal

    Evie Kendal
    Lecturer
    School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine
    Monash University
    Victoria, Australia
    Evie Kendal is a lecturer at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. She currently holds a Master of Bioethics, an Honours degree in English literature and cultural studies and a Bachelor of Biomedical Science. Her doctoral studies are focused on feminist bioethics and the representation of emerging reproductive biotechnologies in literature and film. Evie is the former human research ethics committee coordinator of a private hospital in Melbourne and teaches bioethics to philosophy, health, biomedical and medical students at Monash.

  • Responsibility and Moral Conflicts

    What does it mean to be a morally responsible agent? What happens to our sense of responsibility when we face conflicting interests, values, or obligations? What happens when moral theories conflict? This seminar explores the complex and problematic issues that arise at the intersection of moral responsibility and moral conflicts. Building upon the basic foundations of ethical theory, we will begin the course by examining the nature of agency and responsibility. While many historical traditions emphasize having a free will or being properly informed, recent work encourages us to focus on how we naturally respond to others and to ourselves. We will examine whether or not any of these accounts help us to evaluate – to praise or blame – agents faced with extremely difficult decisions. In medical emergencies, just like in many high-stakes political contexts, action must be taken, even when the right thing to do is far from clear. The course will analyze what it means to face a moral dilemma, when we might be required to get ‘dirty hands’ (to do wrong for the sake of a good outcome), and how we are often subjected to moral luck. Participants will be encouraged to discuss a host of perplexing case studies and to question the adequacy of some of the most widely-accepted ethical theories.

    Daniel Tigard

    PhD Candidate, Department of Philosophy, Tulane University
    After completing his BA at the University of Washington–Seattle (2009) and his MA at Brandeis University (2012), Daniel moved to New Orleans to pursue his doctorate at Tulane University. At Tulane, he teaches Medical Ethics on a regular basis and was recently awarded a graduate fellowship from the Murphy Institute’s Center for Ethics and Public Affairs. Daniel’s published work addresses issues concerning moral conflicts, informed consent and clinical research ethics, and has appeared in Ethical Theory and Moral Practice and Bioethics. His dissertation analyzes the psychology of moral distress among nurses and physicians, and challenges the predominant accounts by arguing for the positive value of moral distress in medical practice.

  • Religious Reasoning in Bioethics

    With regard to the emergence and development of bioethics, one could argue that while theological ethicists helped to shape the questions and concerns of the field in the 1960s, religious perspectives have gradually been phased out of public discourse. Religious beliefs are often treated as private ethical commitments that are indefensible, cannot speak to public normative discussions, and should not be invoked in decisions about legal policies; in fact, the very idea of religious reasons may seem contradictory, as there is a long-standing tradition of viewing religion as irrational or a-rational. Nevertheless, the insights and values of religious traditions and communities seem to have survived the alleged secularization of bioethics; and insofar as religious adherents continue to encounter and make contributions to the field, they are beholden to engage in the normative practice of providing reasons for their positions.

    Some of the questions we will ask in this seminar include: Can religious reasons appeal to those outside of the religious communities that invoke them? Must religious reasoning avoid relying on unverifiable theological claims in order to be persuasive? And what is the difference between a “religious” and “non-religious” or “secular” reason, anyway? To see how some of these questions have practical import, we will discuss individual legal cases where religious reasoning has played a role in bioethical issues.

    AJ DeBonis

    Adjunct Professor, Depts. of Catholic Studies and Philosophy, Theology, and Religious Studies, Sacred Heart University
    Theology Teacher, St. Joseph High School, Trumbull, CT

    AJ holds a BA in Philosophy from Eastern University, a dual MA in Theology and English Literature from Villanova University, and an MA in Religious Ethics from Yale Divinity School. He attended the 2015 Sherwin B. Nuland Summer Institute in Bioethics, and teaches courses on morality, bioethics, the Catholic intellectual tradition, and world religions at the high school and college levels.

  • Bias in Bioethics

    What is the difference between female genital mutilation and labiaplasty? How do biomedical advances such as artificial reproductive technologies; organ transplantations; and the discovery of new medicines and treatment affect equity for different groups of people? Are bioengineering and industrialized food production a solution for world hunger, or a threat to our health and the environment? What is the tension between end-of-life care and aid in dying on one hand, and extreme poverty on the other? How does one justify continuous, infinite growth on a finite planet? These are the kind of questions we will try to answer in this seminar.

    This course will help you recognize cultural and contextual bias in bioethical issues. It will also make apparent how these biases impact the principles of autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. The main goal is to acquire a greater understanding of different perspectives and their value and to uncover and identify our own biases, so as to strengthen our ability to critically assess arguments in bioethics. During the discussions, we will examine the tensions between the North and South, the current and future generations, between the rich and poor, between the fortunate and less fortunate (whoever you may think those to be), on national as well as international level.

    Mayli Mertens

    PhD Candidate, Department of Philosophy, University of Twente
    PhD representative for WTMC Graduate School of Science, Technology, and Modern Culture
    Member of 4TU Center for Ethics and Technology
    Mayli has a background in journalism and worked as an international correspondent until 2006, living in 12 different countries and traveling all over the world including North, West, and South Africa and the Middle East. She then founded 'artists united' http://forabetterworld.net, directed art productions, and gave lectures on social and environmental justice - activities for which she continued to operate internationally. Mayli obtained her MA in Applied Ethics from Linköping University in Sweden and was recently awarded ’Best Formal Paper by a Graduate Student’ by the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) for her work “Objectivity beyond the red line: A case for binocularity in war reporting.” Her current research in neuroethics and philosophy of technology is on responsible innovation in the prognosis of postanoxic coma.

  • Public Health Ethics

    In March 2016, The World Health Organization terminated its public health emergency warning for Ebola. From 2014-2016 West Africa experienced the largest outbreak of Ebola in history. There were over 28,000 cases of Ebola, with 11,325 people left dead. Many responded to this public health emergency including various international and national governmental agencies as well as non-governmental organizations and individuals. Most importantly to our context, the outbreak sparked a live debate among bioethicists.
    Ensuring the health and well-being of a population is a fundamental goal of public health. While state and local governments have expansive powers meant to preserve and protect the public’s health, actions taken in order to protect health and well-being may conflict with the rights and freedoms of individuals. Thus, a central question in public health ethics involves the balances of public good and personal liberty.
    Using the Ebola Outbreak as a case study, the course will introduce students to ethics in public health. The first half of the course will cover the history and general principles of public health ethics, the notion of social justice as a core element, and the social determinants of health. The second half of the course will focus on specific topics and case studies, including vaccination, quarantine and isolation.

    Sheena M. Eagan

    Title: Adjunct Assistant Professor
    Affiliation: California State University East Bay
    Sheena Eagan received her Ph.D. in the Medical Humanities from the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch, specializing in medical ethics and the history of medicine. Prior to doctoral studies, Dr. Eagan completed a Master of Public Health at the Uniformed Services University. Her research and teaching focus on ethics with a specialization in medicine and a subfield focus of military medical ethics.

    Zohar Lederman

    Title: PhD candidate
    Affiliation: Centre for Biomedical Ethics, Long Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore
    Zohar Lederman is a medical doctor and a bioethics PhD candidate at the National University of Singapore. His PhD focuses on the ethics of One Health. His other areas of interest include: end of life care, the dual loyalty dilemma, ethics of infectious diseases and public health ethics.

July Seminars

  • Comparative Human Rights and Healthcare

    The course aims to provide an understanding of the international human rights protection framework in healthcare context and to explore linkages between health, healthcare and human rights (both how human rights violations undermine health and how the protection and promotion of human rights can contribute to improved health status). Through problem based learning and collaborative work in study groups prior to coming to the classroom, the students will examine the State’s obligations not to intervene with the individuals’ freedoms and take measures to safeguard rights in the area of health. At the end of the course, the students are expected to be able to scrutinize human rights violations, and those practicing medicine, are enabled to work in human rights compliant manner.

    Kavot Zillén

    LL.D. in Medical law, Stockholm University, Sweden
    Kavot holds a LL.D. in Medical Law and is a postdoctoral researcher at Stockholm University in Sweden. Her position involves research and teaching in the field of administrative, medical law, and human rights law. Prior to starting her LLD, Kavot worked as a legal expert at the Swedish Medical Responsibility Board and at The National Board of Health and Welfare, under the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs.

    Santa Slokenberga

    LL.D. in Medical Law, Uppsala University, Sweden
    Santa holds a LL.D. in Medical Law and is a postdoctoral researcher at Uppsala University in Sweden. Her research focuses on the coexistence of the EU and Council of Europe in regulating health-related direct-to-consumer genetic testing. Currently, she is a legal expert in B3Africa project and works towards bridging biobank research in Europe and Africa. In addition, she has been teaching in the fields of EU law and medical law and since 2011. Prior to starting her doctoral studies, Santa Slokenberga worked as a legal advisor for Deloitte Latvia.
  • Ethical issues in psychiatry and child psychiatry

    The aim of this seminar is to explore emerging ethical issues in psychiatry through professional and personal experiences, with case study analysis and discussion of the latest developments in scientific literature and thinking in the bioethics of psychiatry.
    The seminar series will look at identifying and dissecting ethical issues in psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. It will focus on issues such as gender dysphoria in adolescents and adults, personal autonomy in psychiatry and involuntary treatment, the use of legal and restricted drugs for psychiatric treatment, the bioethics of psychoanalysis, and more.
    In the context of the bioethics of psychiatry, participants will develop speaking skills, an understanding of dialectic argument based on principles of bioethics, and advanced skills in critical analysis.

    Santiago Peregalli

    Medical Doctor, trainee in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève (HUG), Switzerland.
    Masters in Bioethics and Law, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain.
    Santiago studied medicine at the Universidad de la Republica Oriental del Uruguay and the Universidad Europea de Madrid in Spain. Santiago is a licensed physician in Uruguay, Spain and Switzerland, where he is currently an advanced trainee in child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy at the Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève.
    Santiago is a graduate of the Yale Summer Bioethics Institute in the class of 2013. He was offered a scholarship by the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics of the University of Barcelona to study a master by research in Bioethics and Law with a research focus on gender, and adolescent agency and autonomy.

  • Ethics at the End of Life

    This seminar will explore complex and sensitive ethical issues that arise at the end of life, including: the meaning of "death," the question of a right to die, considerations at play in end-of-life policies (including physician aid in dying), disability perspectives on end-of-life policies, and end-of-life disputes in the clinical setting. Students will participate in rigorous seminar discussions and a bioethics mediation simulation at the end of the course. We will also be hosting a very special panel with guest speakers about perspectives on the end of life across religious traditions.

    Shawna Benston

    Postdoctoral Fellow
    Columbia University
    Center for Excellence in ELSI Research
    Shawna Benston holds a BA in English and Classics from Yale University, an MA in Classics from the University of St Andrews (Scotland), a Masters of Bioethics and the Clinical Ethics Mediation Certificate from the University of Pennsylvania, and a JD from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Her work has focused on mourning, melancholia, and metamorphosis in Classical literature; and on narrative ethics, narrative medicine, bioethics mediation, the ethics of genetics technology, and disability law in the realm of bioethics. At Cardozo Law, Shawna served as President of the Dispute Resolution Society and a member of the Mediation, Divorce Mediation, and Health Care Reform Clinics. She also served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Conflict Resolution, in which capacity she planned and hosted a symposium titled “Bioethics, Healthcare Policy, and Alternative Dispute Resolution in the Age of ‘Obamacare.’” Shawna has worked as a Scholar-in-Residence at Columbia University’s Center for Bioethics, and as Health Care Advocate and Staff Attorney at the Center for the Independence of the Disabled, New York (CIDNY). Currently, Shawna is a Postdoctoral Fellow studying the ethical, legal, and social implications of genetics at Columbia University.

  • Cross Cultural Bioethics in Obstetrics and Pediatrics

    This seminar will explore a variety of ethical issues that arise when becoming pregnant and leading up to childhood: beginning with pre-implantation diagnosis and screening, embryo disposition, then prenatal diagnosis and genetic counseling in early pregnancy, abortion (also including access by minors to abortion and birth control), treatment of premature babies, explaining illness to children. This course will present six cases from these respective stages and examine the cross-cultural ethical issues that arise (mainly, U.S. vs Japan). Often, patients and medical professionals are confronted with difficulty in dealing with these issues due to the wide range of circumstances, governments, policies, religions, and cultural values prevalent in that region. Through discussing these cases, students will learn to recognize and address the cultural dilemmas faced by medical professionals, patients and their families in health care settings, as well as gaining respect for the universal components of biomedical ethics.

    Shizuko Takahashi

    MD, PhD
    Physician & Genetic Counselor, The University of Tokyo, School of Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology; The Japanese Red Cross Hospital, Tokyo, Japan
    Visiting Researcher, The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Medicine, Center for Biomedical Ethics and Law
    Shizuko recieved BA from Reed College in Molecular Biology and Fine Arts in 1997. She then attended medical school at Tokai University, School of Medicine (Isehara, Japan), and obtained her MD in 2002. After residency at the Japanese Red Cross Hospital and the University of Tokyo Hospital, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, she studied at the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Medicine in both the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Law. She recieved her PhD in 2010 and her dissertation was on the decision-making process of fate of frozen embryos for infertile women in Japan, focusing on the cultrural implications on how embryos are percieved. In addition, after the great eastern earthquake in 2011 in Japan, she has been involved in disaster medical ethics. Her works have been published in BMC Medical Ethics, Lancet, and BMJ, and she has given lectures at the University of Tokyo.

  • Ethics of Emergency Medicine

    This seminar will introduce you to the ethical issues that arise in the course of work in an emergency medicine setting. Through case-based discussions, we will put you "in the shoes" of an emergency physician, to learn about and apply what we know about ethics to a unique environment - the fast paced emergency room, where quick decisions have lasting implications.

    Evie Marcolini

    Assistant Professor, Departments of Emergency Medicine and Neurology
    Division of Neurocritical Care and Emergency Neurology
    Medical Director, SkyHealth Critical Care
    Yale University School of Medicine
    Evie Marcolini, MD is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Critical Care. She has clinical appointments in the Department of Emergency Medicine and the Department of Neurology; and is core faculty in the Emergency Department as well as the Division of Neurocritical Care and Emergency Neurology. She has board certifications in Emergency Medicine and Neurocritical Care. Dr. Marcolini is the Medical Director for the new SkyHealth Critical Care helicopter transport service that is shared between Yale-New Haven Health Center and Northwell Health System. She also has a special academic interest in Critical Care and end of life issues, and is a member of the Yale-New Haven Hospital Ethics Committee. She is a member of the American College of Critical Care Medicine Ethics committee, and teaches an ethics seminar annually for the Sherwin B. Nuland Summer Institute in Bioethics. She has been active as faculty for Wilderness Medical Associates International since 1992, and teaches wilderness medical courses to medical students, residents, faculty and allied health professionals nationally and internationally.

  • Neuroethics

    This seminar will introduce you to some of the issues in the area of neuroscience that have ethical implications. We will, as much as possible, study through cases and interactive classroom discussion. We hope to have a session dedicated to the Cushing Center, and tour the historic collection of human brains, and have a discussion of the ethical issues around human bodies in a museum setting.

    Evie Marcolini

    Assistant Professor, Departments of Emergency Medicine and Neurology
    Division of Neurocritical Care and Emergency Neurology
    Medical Director, SkyHealth Critical Care
    Yale University School of Medicine
    Evie Marcolini, MD is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Critical Care. She has clinical appointments in the Department of Emergency Medicine and the Department of Neurology; and is core faculty in the Emergency Department as well as the Division of Neurocritical Care and Emergency Neurology. She has board certifications in Emergency Medicine and Neurocritical Care. Dr. Marcolini is the Medical Director for the new SkyHealth Critical Care helicopter transport service that is shared between Yale-New Haven Health Center and Northwell Health System. She also has a special academic interest in Critical Care and end of life issues, and is a member of the Yale-New Haven Hospital Ethics Committee. She is a member of the American College of Critical Care Medicine Ethics committee, and teaches an ethics seminar annually for the Sherwin B. Nuland Summer Institute in Bioethics. She has been active as faculty for Wilderness Medical Associates International since 1992, and teaches wilderness medical courses to medical students, residents, faculty and allied health professionals nationally and internationally.

    Karmele Olaciregui, MD

    Resident, Neurology Department - RWTH University Clinic Aachen (Uniklinik RWTH Aachen) Germany
    Dr. Olaciregui, a 2014 alumna of the Summer Institute in Bioethics, is currently a second-year resident in Neurology. Her research interests include brain imaging and epilepsy. She is part of the Multimodal Imaging in Neurodegeneration (MIND) research group, and is currently involved in a comparative imaging research project in Friedreich's Ataxia.
  • Animal and Veterinary Ethics

    This seminar will introduce participants to several important areas of animal & veterinary ethics including key ethical issues regarding the use of animals in biomedical research, food animal production and public health. Related topics in veterinary medicine such as euthanasia, the human animal bond, and veterinarian-client- patient relationships will also be briefly explored. Introductory readings and class materials are designed for students in a variety of disciplines and prior background in animal related studies is not required. Format is highly interactive. Overviews of weekly topic areas, including varying perspectives, will be offered at the beginning of each class followed by discussions around readings and class material. Open dialogue, questions, and active group discussions are essential elements of this seminar.
    The seminar is lead by a passionate and enthusiastic french-american duo which will offer the student a challenging and enriching experience.

    Jennifer Maas

    Veterinarian, Montgomery Road Animal Hospital
    Adjunct teaching faculty, Animal Ethics, Center for Animals and Public Policy, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, Tufts University
    Dr. Jennifer Maas received her DVM from Cornell University in 1980. Since then she has been involved in active clinical work, practicing large animal medicine and surgery for 20 years, and then companion animal medicine and surgery for 15 years at her veterinary hospital in Southern Massachusetts. In 2016 she received a MS in Animals and Public Policy from the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. Currently she both practices small animal medicine in Western Massachusetts and is an adjunct faculty member at the Cummings School where she teaches animal ethics. She has a particular interest in ethical ways of thinking about wildlife within the context of the natural world and in the ways in which humans think, portray, and speak about animals as applied to animal ethics. Dr. Maas has also works with non profit organizations to promote humane legislation and support community based animal care.

    Laure Hoenen

    PhD Candidate in History of Sciences - Strasbourg University (France)
    Laure Hoenen is a 2013 graduate of the Bioethics Summer Institute. She is currently a PhD Candidate in History of Science and an assistant lecturer in History of Biology at the faculty of Life Sciences (University of Strasbourg, France). Her fields of expertise are history of animal experimentation, history of primatology and history of animal ethics which are at the heart of her dissertation that focuses on the Primatology Center of Strasbourg. Besides studying history of sciences she studied ethics at the University of Strasbourg. Since 2014 Laure is also involved in an animal ethic committee for animals used for scientific purposes.
  • The Ethics of Trauma: PTSD and Moral Injury

    "Why do we glorify war?"
    "How does combat, so venerated by cultures throughout the annals of time, erode the human soul?"
    "Can the damage caused to an individual by participation in war ever truly be healed?"
    "What is our obligation to those who fought for their nation and then returned less than whole?"
    "What other events besides war can inflict trauma - and how do we heal the wounds?"

    These and other questions will be considered as students examine the trauma and horror of war from the perspective of the combatant. Students will analyze why individuals who experience the same events respond differently
    - some seemingly unscathed and others damaged emotionally for life. Non-Combat Trauma will also be examined and compared in this seminar. Along with classroom sessions, learning will take place around campus - near memorials built to remind us of the hope, horror and sacrifice of war.

    We will consider not only the ethics of sending youth to war, but the ethical implications we as a nation have in the restoration of their being.

    Chaplain (Major) Jeff S. Matsler

    Bioethicist, US Army
    Professor of Medical Ethics, Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences (USUHS)

    STM (Bioethics, Yale '15)
    ThM (Ethics, Duke, '12)
    Chaplain (Major) Jeff S. Matsler is the US Army’s Bioethicist and an Adjunct Professor of Ethics at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences (USUHS). As the US Army’s Bioethicist, Jeff annually hosts two national educational events on Bioethics at Walter Reed: The Medical Ethics Short Course and The Defense Medical Ethics Symposium. He provides guidance to Command and lectures regularly around the nation on the importance and nuances of medical ethics from the military and veteran perspectives.

  • LGBT Bioethics

    The LGBT population has been largely overlooked by the medical community, leading to gaps in research and difficulty in accessing care. In this seminar we will begin with a historical look at the emergence of sexual and gender identities, from the works of early sexologists Magnus Hirschfeld and Krafft-Ebing, Freud, and Kinsey, and progress to more recent debates about who is included in the DSM, and under what diagnostic label (whereas homosexuality was declassified as a mental disorder in 1973, gender identity is still controversially included, now under gender dysphoria rather than gender identity disorder). Topics of special interest to LGBT bioethics include policies on blood donation by gay men, the history of clinical trials for HIV drugs, access to hormone treatment for transgender youth/children and trans prisoners, reproductive choice in a queer/trans context and access to new reproductive technologies and surrogacy by the LGBT population, durable power of attorney, visitation rights, and social barriers to accessing health and geriatric care. We will consider particular cases, such as: the use of puberty blockers in the Ashley X case, Chelsea Manning's claim to hormone treatment in prison, Martin Shkreli and price-fixing AIDS drugs, Sharon Kowalski and the right to visitation after an accident.

    Karl Surkan

    K.J. Surkan, Ph.D.
    Lecturer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Karl Surkan has been teaching in the Program in Women's and Gender Studies at MIT for the past 12 years. His research interests include new media activism and online social movements, intersections of bioethics and science and technology studies, feminist media studies, technology studies, queer/trans politics and representation, reproductive technologies, and most recently wearable technologies and epatient communities and health activism.

  • Sexual Ethics and Social Justice

    Insofar as bioethics is concerned with the body’s relation to the whole person, it has an interest in dealing with questions of sexual ethics. This seminar will examine the relation between human sexuality and issues of social justice. Readings will include legal, philosophical, and theological materials so as to critically engage the sexual ethics literature from a variety of perspectives. Although common bioethical questions regarding abortion, contraception, reproductive technologies, and sex research are directly concerned with sexuality, this seminar invites students to examine less commonly known questions regarding the intersection of sexual ethics and social justice. Key topics include government regulation of sexual behavior, feminist ethics, sexual violence and human rights, and the neuroenhancement of love and marriage. Throughout the seminar, students will become well versed in the moral language of justice, self-determination, and human flourishing.

    Roberto Sirvent

    Associate Professor of Political and Social Ethics, Hope International University
    Roberto has broad interests in law and social movements, the ethics of patriotism, theories of resistance, prison abolition, and decolonial ethics. He has published in the areas of sport and militarism, love and justice, and prison hospice care. HIs current work explores the concept of failure as a philosophical category.

  • Bioethics & the Media

    Bioethics involves questions of good and evil, right and wrong, life and death. Naturally, bioethical topics make for lively cocktail party conversations, exhaustive graduate studies and front-page, above-the-fold headlines. But do these headlines address the most important bioethical issues of the day? We’ll look at what gets covered in bioethics and who covers it. We will consider the role of journalists and journalism in the birth of bioethics as an academic discipline. We will sample and critique popular coverage of bioethics (from The New Yorker to People magazine), looking at the competing demands of storytelling, explanation and balance. A half-dozen bioethics “perennials” will help focus these inquiries: news coverage of suicide; organ transplantation and resource allocation; coverage of infertility treatment and “miracle births;” defining illness and marketing cures; and vaccination. A significant amount of class time will be reserved for discussion of student-written opinion pieces on wide-ranging bioethics topics.

    Jeff Stryker

    Freelance Writer
    Jeff is a freelance writer and frequent commentator on public radio, specializing in bioethics issues. Jeff's publications include works in The Hastings Center, and he also is active in the nonprofit sector. Jeff attended the University of Pennsylvania.