11th Annual International Conference on Clinical Ethics Consultation

The 11th Annual International Conference on Clinical Ethics Consultation is being hosted by the Bioethics Program of Union Graduate College & Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York City from May 20-22, 2015.  The schedule is full of interesting and relevant clinical ethics issues.  If you go to ASBH, you should consider going to this too. &nb...

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When Are You Dead?

I am re-posting this press release from Southern Illinois University on some talks I am doing there next week.CARBONDALE, Ill. -- A lecture next week at Southern Illinois University Carbondale will examine the question of when a person is legally dead.Thaddeus M. Pope, director of the Health Law Institute at Hamline University School of Law, will present the 2015 John & Marsha Ryan Bioethicist-in-Residence lecture at the Southern Illinois University School of Law Center for Health Law and Policy.Pope will address “When Are You Dead? Expanding...

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ASBH Call for Proposals Ends March 6

The ASBH 17th Annual Meeting will be October 22-25, 2015 in Houston.  The call for proposals will close at 11:59 pm Pacific Time, Friday, March 6, 2015.ASBH represents the intersection of bioethics and humanities. It is a crossroads where wecelebrate multiple disciplines and practices and professions. It is a place characterized bycreative expression of every dimension of the human experience, including both suffering andhealing. This meeting...

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Who Gets To Decide When To End Life Support?

Bobbi Kristina Brown, daughter of the late Whitney Houston, is on life support after being found unconscious in her Georgia home. As the media speculates over her condition, who should get to decide when to take a patient off life support?  This 16 minute HuffPost video provides a nice analysis.  They used high quality guest experts like Alan Meisel (law, ethics) and Randy Curtis (critical care medicine, ethic...

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Rasouli v. Cuthbertson - Part II

On Friday, the Court of Appeal for Ontario dismissed Hassan Rasouli family's appeal in a lawsuit separate from, though closely related to, the October 2013 Supreme Court of Canada decision in Rasouli v. Cutbertson.In October, 2010, Mr. Rasouli suffered debilitating complications following surgery at Sunnybrook Hospital. He was kept alive by mechanical ventilation. Physicians Brian Cuthbertson, Gordon Rubenfeld and Richard Swartz recommended the withdrawal...

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Clinicians Want Legal Certainty

I like this quote from the Minnesota Supreme Court:  “We sympathize with conscientious and dedicated physicians and health care professionals confronted almost daily with legal uncertainty in what, for them, is accepted medical practice.”  When the court said this in 1989, Minnesota had not yet adopted a statute confirming that death can be determined by not only cardiopulmonary but also by neurological criteria.  But the same sentiment could be applied to all sorts of clinical situations.Much of my own scholarship is animated by...

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Brain Death Conference (Video)

It was a pleasure to be a part of "Brain Death" : Facilitating Family/Hospital Dialogue about Death by Neurological Criteria, a half-day conference last month in Los Angeles.The conference was sponsored by the SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA BIOETHICS COMMITTEE CONSORTUIM (SCBCC) in collaboration with LMU BIOETHICS INSTITUTE.  A video of the proceedings is now availab...

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Mandated Disclosure of Medical Futility Policies

Following Michigan and several other states (see, for example, here and here), new Oregon legislation would require hospitals to disclose their medical futility policies.  S.B. 524 provides in part:"A health care facility that has a policy concerning the provision of life-sustaining procedures that are not likely to benefit a patient’s or resident’s medical condition shall make the policy available in writing. The facility must provide the written policy to any patient or resident who is admitted to the facility within 12 hours...

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Health Care Ethics Consultation: Practice-Based Intensive Training

Health Care Ethics Consultation: Practice-Based Intensive Training - with Mary Faith Marshall and Ellen Fox.  Friday, March 20 to Monday, March 23, 2015, at U...

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The Cruzan Case 25 Years Later: Its Legacy & Its Future

The University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics and Health Law is presenting its 24th Annual Medical Ethics Update: "The Cruzan Case 25 Years Later: Its Legacy & Its Future" on Friday, March 27, 2015.  Keynote Address: “When Doctors Can’t or Don’t Say No” - Barron Lerner, MD, PhDOther Lectures and Panels:End-of-life decisionmakingPalliative care and communication at the end-of-lifeBreakthrough Drugs/Break the bank pricesAddressing...

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Medical Futility: Top Two Formal Mechanisms for Resolving Intractable Disputes

I will be at NYU Langone Medical Center on February 26, discussing "Medical Futility: Top Two Formal Mechanisms for Resolving Intractable Disputes." This is a comparison of the effectiveness and fairness of (1) the dispute resolution procedures in the Texas Advance Directives Act and (2) the Ontario Consent & Capacity Board.The following day, February 27, I will discuss closely related issues at the Quinnipiac-Yale Dispute Resolution Wo...

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Advance VSED for Dementia

A few weeks ago, the issue of advance VSED (voluntarily stopping eating and drinking) was highlighted in the New York Times.  This week, the topic was also addressed by NPR.  And Robin Marantz Henig, who has done a superb job covering other bioethics issues, is doing a piece for the New York Times Magazine.  The issue of advance VSED is important, yet remains unsettled and under-analyzed.  Hopefully, this attention will spur more thoughtful analysis and guidan...

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Jahi McMath to Ask California SOS to Rescind Death Certificate

Alex PadillaThe family of Jahi McMath plans to file a request next week with Alex Padilla, California's secretary of state, asking him to rescind the death certificate so the family can return to Oakland and receive care for their daughter.  (NJ Advance Media)In October 2014, the family tried to achieve the same objective through a court filing in the Alameda County litigation against Oakland Children's Hospital.  But the judge suggested...

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Brain Death: Clinician Duties to Accommodate Objections and "Treat" the Dead

This Friday, February 13, 2015, from 12:15 pm to 1:30 pm, I will present "Brain Death: Clinician Duties to Accommodate Objections and 'Treat' the Dead." This will be at the University of Minnesota Center for Bioethics.  2-530 Moos Tower, 515 Delaware Street, Minneapol...

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Minnesota "Let's Talk Now Act" Advance Care Planning Grant Program

Dozens of end-of-life bills are being introduced each week in legislatures across the country.  These address issues from registries, POLST, guardianship, surrogates, and aid-in-dying.  I cannot report on all of these.  But I do want to mention one piece of new legislation in my own backyard: Minnesota. S.F. No. 410 would create Minnesota Statutes, section 145.99, the "Let's Talk Now Act." This would establish a grant program to encourage advanced care planning and appropriate money for the grants.  S.F. No. 407 also appropriate...

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Policies and Payment Systems to Improve End-of-Life Care

On March 20, 2015, the Institute of Medicine will convene "National Action Conference: Policies and Payment Systems to Improve End-of-Life Care" at the National Academy of Sciences Building in Washington, DC.This meeting will bring together health leaders, policy makers, and other stakeholders to discuss how the recommendations from the IOM report Dying in America: Improving Quality and Honoring Individual Preferences Near the End of Life could...

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Brain Death - Six Minute Video Description

I like this 6-minute video explanation of brain death.  It was produced by the Halachic Organ Donors Society, an organization devoted to saving lives by increasing organ donations from Jews to the general population (Jews and non-Jews alik...

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