Starting today in Cleveland, Ohio, more than 700 bioethicists from around the world gather to debate topics ranging from enhancement in sport to vaccine ethics to the bioethics of food at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities.
This year’s meeting is held at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel and will host 4 days of lively sparring over the hottest and most controversial topics in the field and collegial receptions sponsored by the American Journal of Bioethics, Taylor and Francis, Oxford Journals, Cleveland Clinic, Penn Bioethics, and more.
The meeting’s theme “Future Tense” highlights the ways in which bioethicists are forward looking, anticipating new ethical questions and problems as well as, as the conference co-chairs, Elisa Gordon and Jason Robert state, expressing “disquiet over imminent ethical issues prompted by new technologies (e.g. nanotechnology) and new funding mechanisms (e.g., CTSAs)”.
First, the conference kicks off with pre-conference sessions ranging in topics from medical residency education, led by Howard Brody from UTMB; preventive ethics, led by Ellen Fox and colleagues from the VA healthcare system; an informed consent workshop from a group from the University of Michigan; a panel on ethics consultation led by Mark Aulisio from Case Western; and a law and bioethics teaching workshop by Katie Watson from Northwestern University.
Following these optional sessions, the ASBH juices really get flowing with some “God” talk from the author of House of God (read about it here), Stephen Bergman who will explore the concept of “inhumanity” and the use of fiction to convey healing in the medical context.
The first day of the ASBH Annual Meeting promises not to disappoint. Two sets of panel sessions in the afternoon are packed full of interesting and diverse topics. These are buttressed by plenary sessions and receptions that promise to stimulate and connect old colleagues and new friends.
Live from Cleveland,
Summer Johnson, PhD
**ATTENTION Conference attendees: AJOB and bioethics.net will be hosting its reception at Shucker’s on the 1st floor of the Renaissance from 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM tonight.**