Bioethics for the People

*Content warning, this episode discusses suicide.

In this episode, our first international guest! Dra. María Susana Ciruzzi (Suzie) tells us about a story from Buenos Aires of a young woman with a chronic illness who asks her doctors to help her die. Learn more about how the medical team responded to a request they couldn’t honor from a patient they knew well.

In this episode, Tyler and Devan talk to Dr. Jessica Turnbull about a difficult case involving an infant with a severe brain injury. What do we do when a child’s parents make choices the health care team believes are not in the child’s best interest? When should we refuse to continue medical treatments? Who do we turn to when parents are suspected of child abuse?

Jessica Turnbull, M.D., M.A. is a Pediatric Intensivist and a Pediatric Clinical Bioethics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Her areas of interest include utilizing qualitative research methods to study decision-making for medically complex children during times of critical illness, as well as improving palliative care delivery in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. She joined the faculty at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt and the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society in 2013.

In this episode Dr. Abram Brummett discusses whether it is ever justifiable to deceive patients. He brings to us a case in which direct lying to a patient may have been in her best interest. Do you agree?

Dr. Abram Brummett is assistant professor in the Department of Foundational Medical Studies. He teaches medical humanities and clinical bioethics to medical students, as well as serving on the scholarship and curriculum committees. Dr. Brummett also serves as a clinical ethics consultant for Beaumont Health, Michigan’s largest health care system.

Read more from Abe here:

• Brummett A, Thorton A, Salter E, Deters S. “We have nothing left to bury.” The Hastings Center Report 2022. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hast.1335

In this episode, Darian Goldin Stahl walks us through a spooky purgatory scene that has a surprise twist!

Antoine Jean Baptiste Thomas - Dramatisation of Purgatory engraved by Francois Alexandre Villain (1798-1884) c1820-30

Devan and Tyler interview UnConference participants to ask, "What makes a great clinical ethicist?" and "What is the Best part of being a clinical ethicist?" Their answers may surprise you!

Tyler and Devan interview presenters at the UnConference in Clinical Ethics.

Several articles arising from the 2022 Unconference are anticipated to be published in the Winter 2022 issue of The Journal of Clinical Ethics. Articles from prior Unconferences can be found in the Fall 2019 and Fall 2020 issues of

Tyler and Devan meet with the planners and originators of the UnConferences in Clinical Ethics and hear about their goals and intentions for the UnConference. We also discuss how the UnConference is unique and valuable.

In this episode you will meet: Hilary Mabel and Jordan Potter from Wellstar Health, who lead the planning of the latest UnConference; Claire Horner and Janet Malek, planners of the 2nd UnConference in 2020; and Paul Ford, who planned the original UnConference in 2018 with Hilary.

Learn more about the Unconference here

For anyone interested in learning more about the unique structure of the Unconference as originally conceived, as well as its impact, they can read more here.

In this special, mini-season of Bioethics for the People, we are focusing on the “UnConference” in Clinical Ethics, hosted by Wellstar Health in Atlanta.

What is an an UnConference? Stay tuned because we are going deep into the UnConference, its origins and goals, and interview planners and participants.

Episodes will be available in August.

https://www.wellstar.org/about-us/ethics-program/unconference

In this special crossover episode, Tyler and Devan team up with the team at Bioethics in the Margins for our annual Top 10 list of neglected issues in bioethics.

Check out Bioethics in the Margins episodes here