End-of-Life Matters: Cultural Representations through the Entertainment Arts

The 2012 National Academies of Sciences Rosenthal Lecture will be on December 12.  It will focus on how the language of the entertainment arts informs our cultural understanding of end-of-life care. 

Through the screening of clips from the film Beginners and television medical dramas, and a live theatrical performance reading from Sophocles’ Philoctetes, the Rosenthal Lecture panelists will explore the various ways the entertainment arts can provide a platform for an engaging and compelling conversation about end-of-life. The panel will approach the conversation through the lens of the patient, the family, the provider, and the community.

Moderator

• Neal Baer, M.D., Executive Producer, CBS Television; Clinical Professor of Preventive Medicine, University of Southern California

Panelists

• Jay Clayton, Ph.D., Professor and Director, Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy, Vanderbilt University


• Bryan Doerries, Artistic Director, Outside the Wire


• Kathy Foley, M.D., Professor of Neurology, Weill Medical College of Cornell University; Medical Director, International Palliative Care Initiative, Open Society Foundation

Closing Remarks

• Harvey V. Fineberg, M.D., Ph.D., President, Institute of Medicine