The Center for Clinical Ethics and Humanities in Health Care, established at the University at Buffalo in 1994, is now the Romanell Center for Clinical Ethics and the Philosophy of Medicine. The name change honors the 2003 testimentary gift bestowed by Edna Romanell, while reflecting a focus on bioethics in today's complex health care concerns. As a multi-disciplinary center with a long tradition of coordinating academic activities, the Center is poised to expand collaborative research and experience-based learning at UB to better serve the communities of Western New York, Southern Ontario, and borders beyond our own.
Join us online December 11, Friday, 2:00 p.m. EST, as Catherine Nolan delivers the talk: "A Functional Alternative to Radical Capacities." The online event is part of the Fall 2020 Speaker Series hosted by the Romanell Center. Contact David Hershenov, dh25@buffalo.edu
The Romanell Center for Clinical Ethics and the Philosophy of Medicine is pleased to announce the Fall 2020 Speaker Series is being delivered in the virtual format of Zoom. Join us on Friday, November 13, when Robert Kelly delivers the talk, "The Elephant in the Room: Towards a Dispositional (and Unifying) Account of Addiction."
The Romanell Center for Clinical Ethics and the Philosophy of Medicine is pleased to announce the Fall 2020 Speaker Series is being delivered in the virtual format of Zoom. On October 14, Barry Smith delivered the first talk, “The Impossibility of Digital Immortality.” A recording of Smith's presentation is here.
Harvey Berman is a pharmacologist responsible for teaching Doctors of Pharmacy (PharmD) and of Medicine (MD) in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. His teaching and research interests are in adverse drug interactions, pharmacogenomics, ethics of drug clinical trials, pain palliation and geriatric pharmacology.
As an undergraduate, Barry Smith studied mathematics and philosophy at the University of Oxford, before earning his Ph.D. from the University of Manchester in 1976. Currently, he holds the position of Julian Park Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Adjunct Professor of Biomedical Informatics, Computer Science, and Neurology at the University of Buffalo in New York.
Catherine Nolan is currently working on issues in the intersection of metaphysics and bioethics. She is particularly interested in applying the concepts and arguments of the Christian metaphysical tradition to contemporary problems. Her dissertation, entitled “The Ethics and Metaphysics of Vital Organ Donation,” was a defense of the claim that death is a metaphysical event, unable to be determined purely scientifically. This makes the diagnosis of death much more uncertain. If we attempt to justify vital organ donation by claiming that the donor is dead, we are often being misleading or dishonest. Instead, she suggests that we should focus on not killing the donor, treating those who may be dead as though they are still alive.
David Hershenov, Ph.D., is a professor of philosophy at the University at Buffalo and the co-director of the Romanell Center. His earlier research was focused upon issues at the intersection of personal identity and bioethics. His more recent research interests are in the philosophy of medicine.
Timothy J. Madigan, Ph.D, is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York, and the founder of its Irish Studies Program. Madigan’s areas of interest include Medical Ethics, Political Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, and Popular Culture and Philosophy. He is the President of the Bertrand Russell Society and the former President of the Northeast Popular Culture Association. Madigan was the first editor of the Romanell Center’s “Bioethics Bulletin.”
Jack Freer M.D. is a clinical professor, emeritus, and the co-director of the Romanell Center. He was the course director of IDM 701 (the required medical students' clinical ethics course) for 30 years. DUring that time, Freer has organized the Romanell Clinical and Research Ethics Seminars, as well as many other conferences and lecture series over the course of his career.
The Food and Drug Law Journal, Vol. 75 (4) 2021, includes a paper by Romanell Fellow Harvey A. Berman, PhD, MPH, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo. The advance copy of Berman's paper, How Vioxx exposed conflicts of interest at the Food and Drug Administration and The New England Journal of Medicine, is here.
Since retiring from clinical medicine, Jack Freer has been spending more time working on pastel painting. This image depicts a scene in Florence during a 1629-31 outbreak of bubonic plague.
SPOTLIGHT
Journal of Medical Ethics publishes target article by Phil Reed
Romanell Center fellow and Professor of Philosophy at Canisius College Philip Reed recently published a target article, "Expressivism at the Beginning and End of Life," in the Journal of Medical Ethics 46 (2020): 538-544. The article addresses how certain controversial biomedical practices might send a message of disrespect to the disabled. Learn more.