The 23rd annual Notre Dame Medical Ethics Conference took place on campus March 14-16, 2008.
About the Conference
The Notre Dame Medical Ethics Conference enables lively discussion of cutting-edge ethical issues in contemporary medicine. The conference brings together physicians, chaplains, health care administrators, and other medical professionals to discuss and analyze case studies that pose ethical dilemmas in various areas of clinical practice. It is open to Notre Dame alumni, as well as non-alumni. The conference was established by Dr. Philip Clarke in 1985, and is hosted by the Notre Dame Center for Ethics & Culture and the Notre Dame Alumni Association.
Recap of the 2008 Conference
Is healthcare a spiritual discipline? That was the question posed by Franciscan Friar Daniel Sulmasy at the 23rd annual Notre Dame Medical Ethics Conference, held on campus March 14-16.
The Notre Dame Medical Ethics Conference encourages lively discussion of cutting-edge ethical issues in contemporary medicine. The conference brings together physicians, chaplains, health care administrators, and other medical professionals to analyze case studies that pose ethical dilemmas in various areas of clinical practice.
“The topics and conversations [spanned] from the informative to the ‘performative’,” said attendee Dr. John Bruchalski of Oak Hill, Va. “It gave me a lot to pray and think about . . . how to act as a Christian physician. For me it led to hope.”
As part of the conference, Daniel Sulmasy, O.F.M., M.D., Ph.D. delivered the 2008 Philip and Doris Clarke Family Lecture, entitled “Is Health Care a Spiritual Discipline.” Sulmasy said that in order to heal patients wholly, one must look at how the disease affects them spiritually as well as physically. “There is an infinite space between [physicians’] hands and the bodies of the patients they touch,” he said. “And there is a transcendent healing in that space.”
ND student Rachel VanderGenugten said the address took her on a “spiritual journey” that brought the entire conference to a new level. “He helped me to see that it is still possible to practice compassionate medicine,” she said.
Sulmasy is a professor of medicine and the director of the Bioethics Institute at New York Medical College and holds the Sisters of Charity chair in ethics at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan.
The Medical Ethics Conference was established by Dr. Philip Clarke in 1985 and is hosted by the Notre Dame Center for Ethics & Culture and the Notre Dame Alumni Association. In addition to the Clarke Lecture, the conference also included a series of case presentations with discussions and breakout sessions.
Questions
If you have questions about the conference program, contact David Solomon, Ph.D of the Center for Ethics & Culture at (574) 631-9656. If you have general questions about the conference, contact Karen Conway of the Alumni Association at (574) 631-6000.
