Romanell Center for Clinical Ethics
and the Philosophy of Medicine

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.

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. 

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.

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.”  

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.