2010-2011 Albertus Magnus Society Events

biomedical


Research in neuroscience, genetics and biology are moving ahead rapidly, changing research methods, expanding medical technologies and even suggesting new ways of looking at human well-being. This has focused renewed attention on the field of biomedical ethics. We will hear from scholars and experts who have been tracking these changes, and the questions that such advances have raised.   


 

Three Women in My Life: Ethical Issues at the End of Life

Thursday, September 23, 2010, 7:00 p.m.
Room 263, Priory Campus

Kevin O’Rourke, OP is senior scholar with the Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy, Loyola University of Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, and is the author of many books and articles in his field.  In this presentation he will speak about his personal involvement as consultant in the cases of Karen Anne Quinlan, Nancy Beth Cruzan and Christine Busallachi which drew national attention to the legal and moral implications of removing (or not removing) life support from dying people.

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Stem Cell Therapy: Clinical Possibilities and Ethical Implications

Thursday, October 28, 2010, 7:00 p.m.
Room 263, Priory Campus

Irina Calin-Jageman, PhD, assistant professor of biology at Dominican University, received her doctorate in Molecular Biology/Biochemistry.  She will focus on three major questions: What are stem cells and where do they come from? How close are we to clinical stem cell therapy for disorders in the human nervous system such as ALS, spinal cord injury and Parkinson’s disease? And what are the ethical implications of stem cell harvesting?

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Albertus Magnus Lecture - Genomic Research and the Catholic Moral Tradition:  Opportunities for a New Synergy Between Science and Religion

Thursday, November 18, 2010, 7:00 p.m.
Auditorium, Priory Campus

Kevin T. FitzGerald, SJ, PhD (molecular genetics), PhD (bioethics), Lauler Chair of Catholic Health Care Ethics in the Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University, and associate professor in the Department of Oncology at the Georgetown University Medical Center, will review the benefits that genetic and genomic research could bring to our nation and our world, and the likelihood of achieving such benefits. He will follow with an ethical evaluation of proposed research and suggest an approach that includes religious perspectives in order to increase the chances of delivering real benefits to individuals and to the global community.

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The Mathematics of Morality in the NICU

Thursday, January 20, 2011, 7:00 p.m.
Priory Auditorum

William Meadow, MD, PhD is professor of pediatrics and Associate Section Chief at the University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital.  His research focuses on the interface between medical epidemiology and ethics, specifically, in the ability, or inability, of neonatologists to predict the outcomes of extremely premature infants while they are still on mechanical ventilation, that is, while there is still some alternative to continuing NICU interventions.  

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The Secrets of the Gourd:  Chinese Pharmacology

Thursday, February 17, 2011, 7:00 p.m.
Priory Auditorium 

Chia-Feng Chang, PhD is associate professor in the Department of History at National Taiwan University, Taiwan. She has been a visiting scholar at the Needham Research Institute, Cambridge, and at Harvard University. She will be a Fulbright Scholar and the Lund-Gill Chair at Dominican University during 2010-2011.  Dr. Chang will discuss the orientation of Chinese pharmacology to the nourishing of life, and its triple goal of longevity, health and healing.  She will also explore whether Western prescriptive practice undermines the harmony that exists between Chinese medicine and nature, the basis of its ethical and applied medical practice.

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Unequal Distribution of Health Services in the U.S. and Across the Globe

Thursday, March 24, 2011, 7:00 p.m.
Priory Auditorium

Aana Maria Vigen, PhD is associate professor of Christian Social Ethics at Loyola University Chicago.  She believes the most important ethical questions regarding biomedical research and treatment are issues of accessibility rather than legitimacy. How do economic factors, ethnicity and gender influence the provision of services, such as pre-natal care? How can the movement toward health reform in the US respond to issues of inequality?


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