Center News & Announcements

Len Fleck is on sabbatical at Northeastern University for the next six months completing the writing of a book for Oxford University Press under the title “Just Caring: The Moral and Practical Challenges of Health Reform and Health Care Rationing.” This book explores a broad range of cases of health care rationing, asking in each case what the role of rational democratic deliberation (as he explicates it)is in addressing these issues.

Tom Tomlinson was a panelist on a forum titled “Biotechnology’s Impact on Society: Food, Agriculture and Human Health”, Wharton Center, MSU (Jan. 23, 2002).

Libby Bogdan-Lovis published a review of Donald Caton’s book What a Blessing She Had Chloroform: The Medical and Social Response to the Pain of Childbirth from 1800 to the Present, (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT and London, 1999) in Victorian Studies 43(4):686-88.

Judy Andre, speaking at the MacLean Conference, University of Chicago, delivered a paper titled “Moral Distress, Nurse-Patient Ratios, and the Quality of Care” (Nov. 4, 2001).

Clayton Thomason and Gregg VandeKieft, M.D. are serving as co-directors of the Mentor Program, a required element of the professional development curriculum for first year College
of Human Medicine students here at Michigan State University.

Judy Andre spoke for St. Luke’s Day at St. Mary of Nazareth Hospital, on “Compassion and Medical Error” (Oct. 16, 2001).

Len Fleck will be presenting at the annual meeting of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science in Boston, Feb. 14-19.  His presentation is titled “Genetics, Science Literacy, Social Values, and Democratic Deliberation.”  This is part of a session titled “Have Your Say: A Town Meeting on Behavioral Genetics,” which in turn is part of a three-session sequence on behavioral genetics.  This presentation is based on his work in the “Communities of Color and Genetics Policy” ELSI project and his work with the Behavioral Genetics Working Group of the Hastings Center and the AAAS.

Tom Tomlinson served as moderator for panel discussion of religious perspectives on end-of-life care, McLaren Hospital, Flint (Nov. 27, 2001).

Clayton Thomason has recently joined the institutional review board (IRB) at the Michigan Public Health Institute, Okemos, MI, a group with the mission of reviewing research proposals for compliance with legal and ethical standards for research involving human subjects (Dec. 2001).

Len Fleck has an essay titled “Last Chance Therapies: Can a Just and Caring Society Do Health Care Rationing When Life Itself is at Stake?” in the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics (Fall, 2001).