Past Issues
Berman Institute Monthly Newsletter – October 2021
October 2021
Announcements
The Berman Institute will be well represented at the 23rd annual meeting of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH), with a group of faculty, fellows, and students scheduled to present online.
View the full schedule and summaries of all Berman Institute presentations.
Jeremy Greene was elected a Fellow of the American College of Physicians.
Events
The Food and Drug Administration’s Emergency Use Authorization: Lessons Learned from the Past to Guide the Future: A Workshop
National Academies Workshop
Wednesday, October 6, 2021
The workshop will examine the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s historic and recent use of the Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) for diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines. It will also provide an overview of the current regulatory framework for EUAs and discuss whether any possible revisions would help to ensure that EUAs are based upon the best and most reliable scientific evidence or enhance public confidence and trust in the EUA process and products. Ruth Faden is a speaker.
The Paradoxical Fragility of the Norms of Protection of Health Care in War
Bioethics Seminar Series
Monday, October 11, 2021, Noon – 1 p.m. EDT
As Leonard Rubenstein explains in his new book, Perilous Medicine: The Struggle to Protect Health Care from the Violence of War, it has been more than 150 years since the first Geneva Convention outlawed attacks on wounded and sick soldiers and their caregivers in armed conflict. Yet the persistence and severity of violence of health care in war not only shows widespread noncompliance but suggests that competing, sometimes unarticulated, norms are employed to rationalize the violence. Link for more information and to join via Zoom. Open to all.
Nursing at the Crossroads: How Can Acute Care Recover from the Pandemic?
AJN in collaboration with JONA
Wednesday, October 20, 2021, 3:00 – 4:30pm EDT
The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on an already compromised infrastructure and stressed the acute care workforce. Nurses have reported exhaustion, mental health concerns, and a perceived lack of support by employers, and many nurses are leaving the acute care setting. Join a panel of nurses and researchers, including Cynda Rushton, to discuss the realities and challenges of what’s needed to restore a workplace that supports, respects, and fosters the contributions of acute care nurses.
Holding the Whole Catastrophe: Being a Nurse During COVID
Thursday, October 21, 2021, 7 – 8 pm EDT
Join Cynda Hylton Rushton, PhD, RN, FAAN and frontline nurse Rheanna Hoffmann, RN, BSN, NC-BC for an honest conversation about what nurses have been facing on the frontlines of the Covid pandemic and how we can begin to honor their experience and begin the process of healing. Through a combination of interactive discussion, storytelling and guided practice, Cynda and Rheanna will hold you with deep care and compassion, and provide space for the entire range of experiences and emotions you have experienced over the last 18 months. Open to all.
Rage Renegades
Bioethics Seminar Series
Monday, October 25, 2021, Noon – 1 pm EDT
“Rage Renegades” refer to allies with rage at racial injustice. They are rage renegades because although their privilege and place in a white-supremacist society is meant to guarantee that they will be complicit or engage in racism as a way to maintain racial domination, they instead show outrage at such a society. In doing so, they rebel against a racist system that was designed to benefit them exclusively. But rage renegading can also go wrong when it reinforces the same white supremacy that the rage aims to challenge. In this seminar, Myisha Cherry, MDiv, PhD, will describe four ways in which this misdirection can happen as well as provide some suggestions for how to steer clear of it. Link for more information and to join via Zoom. Open to all.
Outreach
On September 21, Yoram Unguru gave a talk titled “An Ethical Framework for Prioritizing, Rationing, and Allocating Scarce Medical Resources During the COVID-19 Pandemic” as part of Current Issues in Public Health: COVID-19 Pandemic Response, hosted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
On September 30, Athmeya Jayaram gave a presentation titled “Why the State Should Ban Prenatal Screening for Disabilities” at the American Political Science Association Conference.
On September 27, Stephanie Morain gave a presentation titled “Getting into their Heads: Promoting Ethical Research When the Investigator is Also the Treating Physician” as part of Neurology Grand Rounds, hosted by Baylor College of Medicine.
On October 29, Yorum Unguru will serve as a panelist for an event titled “Let’s Start the Conversation” as part of Summit One – Ending Life Saving Drug Shortages, hosted by Angels for Change.