John C. Moskop, Ph.D.
For almost twenty years now, the Department of Medical Humanities has sponsored a public lecture series entitled “Perspectives.” Since its founding in 1995, the Bioethics Center has been a co-sponsor of the Perspectives lecture series. Over the years, the series has brought leading scholars, including John Arras, Arthur Caplan, and John Fletcher to our academic medical center to address central issues in bioethics, the medical humanities, and public policy.
Fall 2001 lectures included Dr. LeRoy Walters of Georgetown University, who spoke on the ethics of human embryonic stem cell research; Dr. Richard Selzer, who talked about the surgeon as a writer; and Dr. Robert Holmes of the University of Rochester, who discussed the moral controversy surrounding military responses to terrorism. Open to all, Perspectives lectures typically attract a variety of faculty, staff and students from The Brody School of Medicine, East Carolina University, and Pitt County Memorial Hospital.
The spring 2002 Perspectives series promises to be as engaging as ever. Our first lecturer, Dr. John R. Stone, will speak on February 11 on the topic “Facing Racism in the Health Arena: Building Trustworthiness.” Dr. Stone brings a unique background to this topic. After practicing cardiology for many years, he recently completed a Ph.D. in philosophy at Brown University. Since 1999, he has been a Senior Staff Associate of the National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care at Tuskegee University. At Tuskegee, Dr. Stone has pursued research on justice in the allocation of health care and on the implications of racism, among other issues.
On March 18, Dr. Bernard Gert, Stone Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy at Dartmouth College, will present a Perspectives lecture entitled “Are There Any Unique Values in Health Care?” Dr. Gert is currently a Fellow at the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, NC. Well-known nationally and internationally for his work in moral philosophy and bioethics, Dr. Gert is author of Morality: A New Justification of the Moral Rules (Oxford, 1988) and co-author of Bioethics: A Return to Fundamentals (Oxford, 1997). Dr. Stanley M. Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School, will address the topic “Why No One Wants to Die in America” on April 1. In its September 17, 2001 issue, Time Magazine named Dr. Hauerwas “America’s Best Theologian.” Last year, he delivered the prestigious Gifford lectures at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Renowned for his strong arguments (and strong language!), Dr. Hauerwas lectures widely in the United States and abroad.
The final lecture of this spring’s Perspectives series, “Fighting the War on Breast Cancer: One Hundred Years of Controversy,” will be delivered on April 10 by Dr. Barron Lerner, A.B. Gold Associate Professor of Medicine and Public Health at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Lerner is a practicing internist and a historian of medicine. He is the author of two recent books: The Breast Cancer Wars: Hope, Fear and the Pursuit of a Cure in Twentieth Century America (Oxford, 2001) and Contagion and Confinement: Tuberculosis Along the Skid Row (Johns Hopkins, 1998).
We welcome attendance by readers of this newsletter at any of our Perspectives lectures. Each of this spring’s lectures will take place at 12:30 PM in room 2W-50 of the Brody Medical Sciences Building. For more information or directions, please call 744-2797.
