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JSMBS Department of Medicine || CAS Department of Philosophy
JSMBS Department of Medicine || CAS Department of Philosophy

Romanell Center for Clinical Ethics
and the Philosophy of Medicine

Contact
Ramanell Center.

Recent Blog —Kingma and Woollard: “Can You Do Harm to Your Fetus? Pregnancy, Barriers, and the Doing/Allowing Distinction?”

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.

SPOTLIGHT

  • Timmerman's new book: Not to Be: Death, Immortality, and Rational Attitudes
    8/25/26
    Oxford University Press will soon publish Travis Timmerman's new book, Not to Be: Death, Immortality, and Rational Attitudes (forthcoming 2027). The description reads, in part: Deprivationists hold that death is prudentially bad insofar as it prevents one from living additional net good life. This book defends a simple version of deprivationism and then explores the relationship between death’s badness and various interrelated questions that deserve more attention. Timmerman begins by defending an account of overall harm that applies to all events, including death. He then shows how deprivationism can be made immune from the problems normally thought to plague it before arguing that it’s superior to its Epicurean, categorical desire, and annihilationist rivals. From there, Timmerman turns to questions about immortality, first offering an intuitive argument for its desirability. He then argues for the extremely counterintuitive conclusion that two infinitely good lives could be equally valuable, even when one contains far more suffering. Timmerman concludes with an extended exploration of the surprising relationship between the overall value of death and how to feel about it. Stay tuned for OUP information on advance ordering.
    KEYWORDS: Death; Deprivationism; Epicureanism: Annihilation: Categorical Desires; Immortality; Infinite Ethics; Population Ethics; Procreation Asymmetry; Fitting Attitudes.
  • Delaney O'Connell earns Smithsonian fellowship
    8/25/26
    Delaney O’Connell, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and one of the first PhD candidates in UB’s Department of Indigenous Studies, has been awarded a prestigious Smithsonian Institution Fellowship for her work on repatriating artifacts. O’Connell is the graduate assistant for graduate professional development at UB and facilitates the Pathway to the PhD – Preparing for Success Microcredential. She is also the outgoing president of the Graduate Student Organization of the Department of Indigenous Studies and just received notification of a UB Humanities Institute Fellowship. Read the news story by Vicky Santos.

Publications

  • Phillip Reed: Professional medicine should not endorse assisted suicide
    6/18/26

    The Buffalo News Opinion Column (Another Voice/Healthcare) published an essay co-authored by Phillip Reed, titled "Professional medicine should not endorse assisted suicide." The article is about how the Medical Society of the State of New York's (MSSNY) endorseed assisted suicide legislation for the first time. While some state medical societies have adopted positions of neutrality with respect to assisted suicide, the MSSNY is the first to support such legislation. Read the article here.

  • TMB Journal publishes paper by Robert Kelly
    6/18/26
    Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics (TMB)  Journal has published the paper, "Towards a Dispositionalist (and Unifying) Account of Addiction", by RCCE Fellow Robert Kelly. Paper Abstract: Addiction theorists have often utilized the metaphor of the blind men and the elephant to illustrate the complex nature of addiction and the varied methodological approaches to studying it.

Interviews

  • Valerie Williams interviewed by RC Fellow Kurt Blankschaen
    6/18/26

    Valerie Williams (Emmanuel College) sits down with Romanell Fellow Kurt Blankschaen to talk about ethics and problems of using body mass index (BMI) as a deciding factor to offer in vitro fertilization (IVF). They discuss some recent research for teaching on private companies offering prenatal screening that is unregulated by the FDA, patient self-advocacy, and general attitudes towards what it means to be a physically and morally fit parent. Listen to the interview.

David Hershenov featured on PhilStuff video interview

Romanell Center Director, David Hershenov, is featured in a video interview hosted by PhilStuff. Hershenov discusses the relationship between personal identity and the ethics of abortion. He addresses questions and topics such as: What is personal identity? Why personal identity? Brain death; Twinning and fusion; Conjoined twins; Brain transplant; Some interesting puzzles; Bias in the bioethics community. See the YouTube video, here.

People

  • David Hershenov, Director
    6/15/26
    David Hershenov, PhD, is a professor of philosophy at the University at Buffalo and director of the Romanell Center. His earlier research was focused upon issues at the intersection of personal identity and bioethics. His recent research interests are in the philosophy of medicine.
  • Barry Smith
    6/15/26
    Barry Smith wins 2025 UB Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring Award (UBNOW)
     Bio: 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
    6/15/26
    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. 
  • Harvey Berman
    6/15/26
    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.
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Jack Freer, Artist

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.

Timmerman's new book: Not to Be: Death, Immortality, and Rational Attitudes

Portrait of Travis Timmerman.

Travis Timmerman, PhD

Oxford University Press will soon publish Travis Timmerman's new book, Not to Be: Death, Immortality, and Rational Attitudes (forthcoming 2027). The description reads, in part: Deprivationists hold that death is prudentially bad insofar as it prevents one from living additional net good life. This book defends a simple version of deprivationism and then explores the relationship between death’s badness and various interrelated questions that deserve more attention. Timmerman begins by defending an account of overall harm that applies to all events, including death. He then shows how deprivationism can be made immune from the problems normally thought to plague it before arguing that it’s superior to its Epicurean, categorical desire, and annihilationist rivals. From there, Timmerman turns to questions about immortality, first offering an intuitive argument for its desirability. He then argues for the extremely counterintuitive conclusion that two infinitely good lives could be equally valuable, even when one contains far more suffering. Timmerman concludes with an extended exploration of the surprising relationship between the overall value of death and how to feel about it. Stay tuned for OUP information on advance ordering.
KEYWORDS: Death; Deprivationism; Epicureanism: Annihilation: Categorical Desires; Immortality; Infinite Ethics; Population Ethics; Procreation Asymmetry; Fitting Attitudes.