Travis Rieder Publishes New Book, “In Pain”

For Travis Rieder, Research Scholar and Director of the MBE Program at the Berman Institute, experience with opioids began after a 2015 motorcycle accident. The medication helped him through six operations but, as he recovered from the injuries, he discovered that withdrawal from the drugs caused excruciating pain of its own. Rather than risk addiction by following his doctors’ advice to return to the opioids, Rieder endured the struggle of withdrawal. Combining this harrowing experience with his professional training, Rieder has written In Pain, a new book published this week by HarperCollins.

Media coverage associated with the book’s publication includes:

Rieder’s experience exposes a dark secret of American pain management: a healthcare system so conflicted about opioids, and so inept at managing them, that the crisis currently facing us is both unsurprising and inevitable. As he recounts his story, Rieder provides a fascinating look at the history of these drugs first invented in the 1800s, changing attitudes about pain management over the following decades, and the implementation of the pain scale at the beginning of the twenty-first century. He explores both the science of addiction and the systemic and cultural barriers we must overcome if we are to address the problem effectively in the contemporary American healthcare system.

Kirkus Reviews calls In Pain “A bioethicist’s eloquent and riveting memoir of opioid dependence and withdrawal—a harrowing personal reckoning and clarion call for change not only for government but medicine itself, revealing the lack of crucial resources and structures to handle this insidious nationwide epidemic.”

The book arose from a 2017 essay Rieder published in Health Affairs,entitled “In Opioid Withdrawal, With No Help in Sight.” An essay adapted from In Pain appeared in the June 17 Wall Street Journal.

2018-19 Seminar Series

Leading bioethics scholars from around the world lecture on vital issues in the field at our biweekly Seminar Series. Lectures, held at lunchtime, are free and open to the public.

2018-2019 Berman Institute Seminar Series
Seminars are video recorded and posted on our YouTube channel.

Upcoming Seminars

May 13, 2019
Holly Fernandez Lynch, JD, MBE
“Evaluating IRB Quality and Effectiveness”
Seminar Details
Feinstone Hall

Past Seminars

September 24, 2018.
Jonathan Moreno, PhD
“Bioethics is Advocacy: Is That So Wrong?”

October 8, 2018
Travis Rieder, PhD
“Bioethics, Pain Medicine, and America’s Opioid Crisis”

October 29, 2018
Matteo Bonotti, PhD
“Opportunity Pluralism and Children’s Health”

November 12, 2018
Peter Buxtun
“Marked Men: In Case You Didn’t Know about Tuskegee”

February 11, 2019
Alex John London, PhD
“Ethical and Regulatory Issues With Autonomous Vehicles”

March 11, 2019
David S. Jones, MD, PhD

March 25, 2019
Marion Danis, MD
“Engaging the Public in Setting Health Care Priorities”

April 8, 2019
Brian Carter, MD
Hutzler-Rives Memorial Lecture: “Insights from patienthood: A pediatrician and bioethicist’s reflections on pediatric palliative care”

April 22, 2019
Effy Vayena, PhD
“Digital Health Ethics: The Systemic Oversight Approach”

Maria Merritt, PhD

HONORS AND AWARDS

  • Hastings Center Fellow, elected December 2020
  • Recognition for teaching excellence as principal instructor of JHSPH course, Ethics of Public Health Practice in Developing Countries (221.616.01: classroom), 4th term 2016-17, 2015-16, 2014-15, 2012-13, and 2011-12; (221.616.81: online), 4th term 2017-18 and 2016-17; and as principal instructor of Ethics in Global Health Practice (604.603.86), 2018-19.
  • Student Assembly Special Recognition Award for Outstanding Commitment to Student Success, 2017
  • Principal Investigator, NIH award number 1R01AI114458-01A1, 2015-19, “Assessing Social Justice in Economic Evaluation to Scale up Novel MDR-TB Regimens” (award issued by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)
  • Recognition for teaching excellence as principal instructor of JHSPH course, Ethics of Public Health Practice in Developing Countries (221.616.01), 4th term 2015-16; 2014-15; 2012-13; and 2011-12
  • Co-Investigator, NIH award number 1R01AI085147-01A1, 2010-14, “Ancillary Care in Community-Based Research: Deciding What to Do” (PI Holly A. Taylor; award issued by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)
  • Greenwall Faculty Scholars Program in Bioethics career development award, 2009-12, “Researchers’ Obligations in Community-Based Research: Resolving Dilemmas of Care”
  • Faculty Innovation Fund, 2007-08, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, “Ancillary Care in Public Health Intervention Research in Resource-Limited Settings: Researchers’ Practices and Decision-Making”(Co-PI Holly A. Taylor)
  • Faculty Fellow, Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, Harvard University, 2005-06
  • Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Clinical Bioethics, National Institutes of Health, 2000-02
  • Rhodes Scholar, Oxford University, 1987-90

Alan Regenberg, MBE

Alan is also engaged in a broad range of research projects and programs, including the Berman Institute’s science programs: the Stem Cell Policy and Ethics (SCOPE) Program; the Program in Ethics and Brain Sciences (PEBS-Neuroethics); and the Hinxton Group, an international consortium on stem cells, ethics and law; and the eSchool+ Initiative. Recent research has focused on using deliberative democracy tools to engage with communities about their values for allocating scarce medical resources like ventilators in disasters like pandemics. Additional recent work has focused on ethical challenges related to gene editing, stem cell research, social media, public engagement, vaccines, and neuroethics. (Publications)