Conference Speakers

Robert Veatch
Norman Daniels
Michael McDonald
Susan Sherwin
Laura M. Purdy
Douglas K. Martin
Nuala P. Kenny
Patricia Rodney
John Williams
Alister Browne
Reidar Lie
Michael Stingl
Tom Noseworthy

 

Robert Veatch

Robert M. Veatch is a Professor of Medical Ethics and the former Director of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University. He also holds appointments as Professor of Philosophy and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Community and Family Medicine at Georgetown Medical Center.

He is the author of several books in medical ethics including A Theory of Medical Ethics (Basic Books, 1981), Death, Dying, the Biological Revolution (Yale University Press, second edition, 1989), and Medical Ethics (1997). He is the Senior Editor of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal and a former member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of the American Medical Association. His most recent books are Case Studies in Pharmacy Ethics (Oxford, 1999) and The Basics of Bioethics (Prentice-Hall, 2000).

He was formerly the Director of the Research Group on Death and Dying at the Hastings Center in New York. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Pharmacy from Purdue University (1961), a Masters of Science in Pharmacology from the University of California Medical Center, San Francisco (1962), and a Ph.D. concentrating in medical ethics from Harvard University in 1970.

Norman Daniels

Norman Daniels has recently joined the Harvard School of Public Health. He is the former Chair of the Tufts Philosophy Department and Professor of Medical Ethics at its Medical School. A Fellow of the Hastings Center, a member of the Institute of Medicine, a Founding Member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and of the International Society for Equity in Health, he has consulted with organizations, commissions, and governments in the U.S. and abroad on issues of justice and health policy, including the United Nations, WHO, and the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine.

He has written widely in the philosophy of science, ethics, political and social philosophy and medical ethics. Some of his most recent books include Just Health Care; Seeking Fair Treatment: From the AIDS Epidemic to National Health Care Reform; Justice and Justification: Reflective Equilibrium in Theory and Practice; and (with James Sabin) Setting Limits Fairly: Can We Learn to Share Medical Resources.

He is also doing research on how to adapt the "benchmarks of fairness" for use in less developed countries (WHO Bulletin, June 2000), and he is working on Just Health, a substantial revision and expansion of Just Health Care.

Michael McDonald

Michael McDonald, Maurice Young Chair of Applied Ethics, was the founding Director of the Centre for Applied Ethics at the University of British Columbia. (On leave 2002-2003). McDonald's work is located at the intersection of theory and practice in health care, business and professional life, politics, and other aspects of everyday life.

He has written on such topics as the ethics of research involving human subjects, cross-cultural ethics, the rights of communities, professional and corporate responsibility, and the place of applied ethics in contemporary society. He has played an important leadership role in the development of a significant Canadian research capacity in applied ethics.

Some of McDonald's professional service includes serving as Co-Chair of the Standing Committee on Ethics for the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR). Previously, McDonald served as a member and Deputy-Chair of the Tri-Council Working Group on Ethics - the Working Group that prepared the document that eventually became the official policy of the three federal research councils for the ethical conduct of research involving humans.

McDonald has also served as President of the Canadian Philosophical Association, English-Language Editor of the Canadian philosophical journal Dialogue, and President of the Canadian Section of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy.

Susan Sherwin

Sue Sherwin is currently a University Research Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies, Dalhousie University with a cross appointment to the Department of Bioethics. Although Dr. Sherwin's graduate training began in the logic and philosophy of mathematics, it quickly evolved into health care ethics and feminist philosophy. Dr. Sherwin was a collaborator on the first substantive textbook in the philosophical fields of bioethics (Moral Problems in Medicine, Samuel Gorovitz et al, eds, Prentice Hall).

In the mid-1980s, Sherwin combined her two areas of research, bioethics and feminist philosophy, to consider the implications of a distinctively feminist approach to bioethics. In 1992, she published No Longer Patient: Feminist Ethics and Health Care, the first book to appear that focused directly on feminist bioethics. Shortly thereafter, the International Network on Feminist Approaches to Bioethics (FAB) was initiated which has grown to include several hundred members. Sherwin continues her work in the area of feminist health care ethics with her current research focusing on ways in which moral perception (or non-perception) shape moral deliberations, especially in the realm of biotechnologies.

Laura M. Purdy

Laura Purdy is Professor of Philosophy at Wells College. She completed her PhD in Philosophy at Stanford University in 1974. She has been a Visiting Fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder, a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, and a Visiting Scholar with the Hastings Center in New York. From 1997-2000 she held the position of Bioethicist, University Health Network, and the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics where she also acted as Co-Chair of the Women's Health Research Network. At Wells College, she was the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Co-ordinator of the Science, Health & Values Program.

Throughout her distinguished career, Laura has taught, presented and published extensively in the field of ethics. Her published books include: "In Their Best Interest? The Case Against Equal Rights for Children", "Reproducing Persons", and most recently "Bioethics, Justice and Health Care". Amongst numerous publications, she has co-authored "Priority Setting for New Technologies in Medicine: A Qualitative Study" and penned "Justice in the Bedroom: Parenting Against One's Will", "Just Caring?The Delivery of Health Services" and "Death on the Waiting List" - the latter as part of the Professional and Systemic Inabilities to Deliver Services Symposium of theThe Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

Douglas K. Martin

Douglas K. Martin is Director of the Collaborative Program in Bioethics, and Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Administration, and the Joint Centre for Bioethics, University of Toronto. He is a member of the steering committee of the International Society for Priorities in Health Care. In addition, Martin is a faculty member of the Program in Applied Ethics and Biotechnology and Canadian Program in Genomics and Global Health. He teaches in both the graduate bioethics program and undergraduate medical program at the University of Toronto.

Martin has an extensive background in qualitative and interdisciplinary research methods applied to problems in health care and has published in both the bioethics and general medicine literature. His current research interest is in priority setting in health care. Some of his most recent publications include : (with Abelson J and Singer PA) ,. "Participation in health care priority setting through the eyes of the participants". Journal of Health Services, Policy and Research (in press) and (with Giacomini M and Singer PA) "Fairness, Accountability for Reasonableness, and the Views of Priority Setting Decision-Makers". Health Policy (in press).

 

Nuala P. Kenny

Nuala Kenny is Head, Dept. of Bioethics/Professor and Chair/Bioethics Education & Research at Dalhousie University.

After an extensive career in pediatrics and medical education, Kenny founded the Department of Bioethics at Dalhousie in 1995. She now devotes herself to bioethics full-time. Her areas of research interest in ethics include: physician ethics, ethics education for physicians with particular attention to role-modeling, ethics and health policy at all levels, pediatric ethics and end of life care. At present, she is Principal Investigator on a Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons Education Grant on 'Role Modelling and the CanMeds Competencies'.

She has received a Project Development grant from the Maritime Centre for Women's Health to develop a book outline 'Guarded Prognosis: Values and the Future of Canadian Health Care'. Kenny is nationally recognized as a medical educator and lecturer on fundamental ethics questions in health care and policy.

In addition to her academic work, Kenny is regularly involved in policy deliberations. She was Chair of the Values Committee of the Prime Minister's National Forum on Health, and is currently a member of the Governing Council of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and Chairs the Working Group on Ethics in the new CIHR.

Patricia Rodney

Patricia (Paddy) Rodney is an Assistant Professor at the University of Victoria School of Nursing Lower Mainland Campus. Her clinical background is in critical care nursing. She is a graduate of the University of British Columbia (UBC) School of Nursing's Ph.D. Program, where her studies included a focus on philosophy and ethics.

Paddy has presented on health care ethics at a variety of local and national conferences, and has done research and published in the area. Moreover, she has extensive experience teaching health care ethics through her work as a consultant, and through her work as a tutor with UBC's Division of Health Care Ethics. She is on the hospital ethics committees of BC Women's Hospital and St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, BC. In addition, Paddy is a Faculty Associate with the UBC Centre for Applied Ethics and a Research Associate with Providence Health Care Ethics Services. Her research interests include philosophy of nursing science; feminist theory; health care ethics; and nurses' enactment of their moral agency.

John Williams

John Williams is Director of Ethics with the Canadian Medical Association (since 1991) and Adjunct Professor with the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa (since 1993). Williams completed a Ph.D. at the University of St. Michael's College, Toronto (Theology) in 1970.

Some of his previous academic appointments include: Faculty Lecturer, Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University, Visiting Professor, Center for Bioethics, Clinical Research Institute of Montreal, Adjunct Professor, Department of Religion, Concordia University and Visiting Foreign Professor, Department of Medicine, University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Dr. Williams serves as a member of: the Advisory Committee, Saint Paul University Ethics Centre, the Advisory Council, Carleton University Centre on Values and Ethics, and the Ethics Review Committee, Canadian Council for International Cooperation. He has published and presented extensively in the field of bioethics on numerous topics including: physician assisted death, accountability in health care, ethics of regionalization, resource allocation and priority setting. He is founding editor of SYNAPSE: A Canadian News Service for Biomedical Ethics, (1985-1990), founding editor of Canadian Bioethics Report, (from 1991) and associate editor of Humane Medicine (1992-1995).

Alister Browne

Alister Browne Chairs the Department of Philosophy at Langara College, Vancouver B.C. He also acts as the Ethics Consultant for the Vancouver Hospital & Health Sciences Centre and as Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Family Practice, UBC. He is past Director of the Division of Health Care Ethics at UBC. Dr. Browne is a member of the ethics committees of Vancouver General Hospital (of which he is the Chair), GF Strong and Geo Person Centres, British Columbia Children's Hospital, Sunny Hill Hospital, and Burnaby Hospital. He also sits on the Board of Directors of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, is a member of the steering committee for the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, St. Paul's Hospital and Consulting Editor for HEC Forum. Dr. Browne has published and presented extensively in philosophy, ethics and health ethics.

Reidar Lie

Reidar Lie is Professor at the Center for International Health of the University of Bergen. He also holds the positions of Adjunct Professor, Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand, (since 2000), Senior Research Fellow, Department of Clinical Bioethics, NIH (since 2002), and is past Director, Center for Medical Ethics, University of Oslo (1989 - 1995).

Dr. Lie received his M.D. at the University of Bergen, 1983 and Ph.D. (Philosophy) at University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1987. He has published and presented extensively both nationally and internationally. His research interests include ethics, health care ethics and philosophy of science.

He is particularly interested in international issues in health care ethics and has participated in a number of international research projects such as with the UNAIDS team to assess planning for HIV vaccine development in Kenya, South Africa and Zambia (1999-2000) and the UNAIDS team to do an ethical review of phase III HIV vaccine trial in Bangkok, Thailand, 2001. Some of his more recent publications include: "Evidence based medicine as an instrument for rational health policy" (with Biller N. and ter Meulen R.), Health Care Analysis 2002: 10 (4) and "Ethical dilemmas and resource allocation: Two questionnaire studies", WHO-SEARO, New Delhi 1999.

Michael Stingl

Michael Stingl is an Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, where he also serves as the coordinator of the liberal education program. Michael received his BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his MA and Ph.D. (Philosophy) from the University of Toronto. Prior to his current position he has also held teaching positions at Rice University and the University of Calgary.

He has published articles in a variety of books and journals on the history of twentieth century ethics, the biological foundations of human moral thought and behavior, euthanasia, and the just allocation of health services. With Donna Wilson he edited a book on the economics and ethics of Canadian health reform, and is also the administrative editor of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy.

Dr. Stingl sits on the board of the Provincial Health Ethics Network (Alberta) in addition to serving on a number of provincial committees as a bioethics representative. Selected Publications include: "All the Monkey's Aren't in the Zoo: Evolutionary Ethics and the Possibility of Moral Knowledge", "Moral Epistemology Naturalized", Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary vol. 26 (2000), ed. Richmond Campbell and Bruce Hunter, pp. 245-265 and "Euthanasia and Health Reform in Canada," Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 7, 4 (1998): 348-362.

Tom Noseworthy

Tom Noseworthy is Director of Centre for Health and Policy Studies, and Professor, Department of Community Health Sciences, University of Calgary. He is currently the Clinical Advisor for Alberta Wellnet, the Province's health information system, and Chair of the Western Canada Waiting List Project. He is former CEO of the Royal Alexandra Hospital, and Chair of the Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Alberta. Dr Noseworthy served as a member of the Prime Minister's National Forum on Health and co-chaired the Advisory Council on Health Infostructure.