Berman Institute Monthly Newsletter – January 2020

Announcements

Berman Institute Highlights from 2019
As we prepare to welcome 2020, the Berman Institute of Bioethics is grateful for a wonderful 2019 and to all the generous supporters who helped make the year so successful. Join us in looking back at 10 of the Berman Institute’s many highlights in 2019.

MBE student Brandi Scully, MD, MS, was awarded the 2019 Cardiothoracic Ethics Forum Scholarship. The Cardiothoracic Ethics Forum is the joint entity of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons that is responsible for ethics education in cardiothoracic surgery.

Cynda Hylton Rushton’s book, Moral Resilience: Transforming Moral Suffering in Healthcare, was chosen as a book of the year for Nursing Professional Issues by the American Journal of Nursing.

Upcoming Events

January 13, 3:30 – 5:00 pm
A Conversation with Dani Shapiro, author of the NYT best-selling memoir “Inheritance,” moderated by Ruth Faden, PhD, MPH
Location: Chevy Chase Auditorium, Johns Hopkins Hospital. Register here.

January 21, 12:00 – 1:15 pm
Ethics for Lunch
Location: Room 2117, Sheik Zayed Tower, Johns Hopkins Hospital. Lunch will be provided.

January 27, 12:00 – 1:15 pm
Seminar: Healthcare Architecture: A Moral Imperative
Diana Anderson, MD, ACHA
Location: Room 2117, Sheik Zayed Tower, Johns Hopkins Hospital. Lunch will be provided.

Publications

Are There Gender-based Differences in Language in Letters of Recommendation to an Orthopaedic Surgery Residency Program?” Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research
Authors: Audrey N. Kobayashi, Robert S. Sterling, Sean A. Tackett, Brant W. Chee, Dawn M. Laporte, Casey Jo Humbyrd

Medical Decision-Making in Foster Care: Considerations for the Care of Children with Medical Complexity,” Academic Pediatrics
Authors: Rebecca SeltzerJessica C. Raisanen, Trisha da Silva, Pamela K. Donohue, Erin P. Williams, Jennifer Shepard, Renee D. Boss

Defining the Boundaries of Palliative Care in Pediatric Oncology,” Journal of Pain and Symptom Management
Authors: Andrea Cuviello, Jessica C. Raisanen, Pamela K. Donohue, Lori Wiener, Renee D. Boss

Oncology drug shortages in the USA — business as usual,” Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology
Authors: Erin R. Fox, Yoram Unguru

“Chasing the first high”: memory sampling in drug choiceNeuropsychopharmacology
Authors: Aaron M. Bornstein, Hanna Pickard

“Why Are We Doing This?” Creating New Narratives to Meet Futility With Integrity, AACN Advanced Critical Care
Authors: Kathleen Turner, Cynda Hylton Rushton

Comparative Approaches to Drug Pricing,” Annual Review of Public Health
Authors: So-Yeon Kang, Ge Bai, Michael J. DiStefano, Mariana P. Socal, Farah Yehia, Gerard F. Anderson

Ethics and Collateral Findings in Pragmatic Clinical Trials,” The American Journal of Bioethics
Authors: Stephanie R. Morain, Kevin Weinfurt, Juli BollingerGail GellerDebra JH MathewsJeremy Sugarman

Lived Experience of Pediatric Home Health Care Among Families of Children With Medical Complexity,” Clinical Pediatrics
Authors: Renee D. BossJessica C. Raisanen, Kathryn Detwiler, Karen Fratantoni, Susan M. Huff, Kathryn Neubauer, Pamela K. Donohue

Understanding the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative: A Multidisciplinary Analysis,” International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics
Authors: Erica Preston-Roedder, Hannah Fagen, Jessica Martucci, Anne Barnhill

War, Political Conflict, and the Right to Health,” Health and Human Rights Journal 
Author: Leonard Rubenstein

BI In the News

Ruth Faden, PhD, MPH, wrote an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times on the Supreme Court’s recent decision to uphold Kentucky’s recent abortion law. The op-ed was also published in the Chicago Tribune.

Travis Rieder, PhD, was interviewed on Science Rules!, a podcast hosted by Bill Nye, in an episode about the ethics of having children in an era of climate change.

An excerpt of Travis Rieder’s book, In Pain, was printed in the Saturday Evening Post.

Maggie Moon, MD, commented on a news article in the Capital Gazette covering a Maryland baby who received a $2.1 million medical treatment for a rare disease.

Jess Fanzo, PhD, commented in an article on NPR’s Goats and Soda about the double burden of malnutrition, affecting both undernourished and overweight people.

Alan Regenberg, MBE, commented in Reuters on the backlash to Novartis’ plan to offer its expensive gene therapy in a lottery-like system.

Cynda Rushton, PhD, RN, FAAN, was interviewed by Danielle Kress on her role on the National Academies committee on clinician burnout for the Berman Institute website.

Research conducted by Debra Mathews, PhD, MA, and Travis Rieder, PhD, on ethical robots was featured in Johns Hopkins Magazine’s Winter edition.

Dr. Mathews penned a blog post for the Henry Luce Foundation titled “Bioethics: Responsibly Shaping the World in Which We Live.”

Research by Mario Macis, PhD, on compensating kidney donors was featured on the Carey Business Blog.

Outreach

January 22-24
Geneva, Switzerland
Gail Geller, ScD, MHS, will participate in an expert workshop at the Brocher Foundation titled “Implementing Genomic Technologies into Healthcare Systems.” The workshop is hosted by Oxford University’s Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities and the Ethox Center.

January 17
Washington, DC
Yoram Unguru, MD, MS, MA, will give a talk titled “White Lies, Deception, and Bending the Truth—Is Nondisclosure of a Cancer Diagnosis Every Ethically Acceptable?” at Children’s National Medical Center.

December 10-11
Washington, DC
Debra Mathews, PhD, MA, gave a talk titled “CRISPR and the meaning of solidarity in a Balkanized world” at Life 2.0: The Promise and Challenge of a CRISPR Path to a Sustainable Planet, a National Academies of Science (NAS) Colloquium.

December 6
Washington, DC
Yoram Unguru, MD, MS, MA, testified before the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs on the issue of Cost, Supply, and Security Threats to Affordable Prescription Drugs.

December 5-6
Guangzhou, China
Jeremy Sugarman, MD, MPH, MA, spoke at the International Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) Ethics Workshop. His talk was titled “The Significance if Informed Consent for Research and Clinical Practice.” He also moderated a panel discussion titled “Strategies to prevent the premature commercialization of stem cell products and facilitate the development of scientifically validated therapies.”

November 25
Penang, Malaysia
Jeremy Sugarman, MD, MPH, MA, served as the Plenary Speaker at the Forum for Ethical Review Committees in the Asian and Western Pacific Region (FERCAP) 2019 Meeting at the Universiti Sains Malaysia. His talk was titled “Ethics and Regulatory Challenges in Pragmatic Clinical Trials.”

November 18
Boston, MA
Jeremy Sugarman, MD, MPH, MA, presented at Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research’s (PRIM&R) Annual Meeting. His talk was titled “Management of Incidental Findings (IFs) in Pragmatic Clinical Trials (PCTs).”

November 12
Kingston, RI
Jeremy Sugarman, MD, MPH, MA, gave a talk titled “Ethical Controversies in Medicine and Medical Research: The Interplay of Secular Bioethics and Religion” at for the University of Rhode Island Honors Colloquium Series: Religion in America.