Category: Outreach

Bioethics for Breakfast: Demystifying End-of-Life Care

Bioethics for Breakfast Seminars in Medicine, Law and Society

Leonard M. Fleck, PhD, and Karen Smith, LMSW, PhD, HEC-C, presented at the October 13 Bioethics for Breakfast session, offering their insight and expertise on the topic “Demystifying End-of-Life Care.” Bioethics for Breakfast is generously sponsored by Hall, Render, Killian, Heath & Lyman. The presentation portion of the session was recorded and is available to watch on our website.

The State of Michigan has recently approved the MI POST (Michigan Physician Order for Scope of Treatment), which allows a patient and physician to have in place directions (orders) on care to go between levels of treatment. Such orders typically specify the kind of care a terminally ill patient would want or refuse in an emergency situation outside a hospital setting. Such orders are agreed to by a competent patient or their representative and the attending physician. A POST document is often part of a larger advance care planning document.

Most patients do not have an advance directive or a POST. What happens when that patient is actively dying and the attending physician believes a Do Not Attempt Resuscitation order (DNAR) is in the best interest of that patient? Should that decision by the physician require the written consent of the patient’s family for that DNAR order? And what are the consequences for the patient if the family cannot reach agreement? If you were that patient, what would you regard as the most reasonable course of action? How would you ensure your wishes are followed?

Presenters Fleck and Smith gave some background on what it means to have a natural death and a managed death, noting that the majority of Americans today die a managed death. Smith explained that durable power of attorney and MI POST are the two state-authorized methods for directing end-of-life wishes. Fleck asked attendees to consider the following questions: Are the policies and practices in place regarding terminally ill incapacitated patients good enough? Are they the best we can do? What might we do better? What do we see as the main deficiencies in current policy and practice?

The presentation also explored how policy can protect patients and prevent suffering at the end of life and presented multiple case examples regarding terminal care in the ICU. Discussion during the Q&A portion focused on family disagreements in the ICU, the value of healthcare literacy and common misconceptions that stem from popular culture, and what happens when the court system is involved with end-of-life decisions.

Related items

About the speakers

Leonard M. Fleck, PhD, is a Professor in the Center for Bioethics and Social Justice and the Department of Philosophy at Michigan State University. Fleck’s interests focus on medical ethics, health care policy, priority-setting and rationing, and reproductive decision-making. He explores the role of community dialogue (rational democratic deliberation) in addressing controversial issues of ethics and public policy related to emerging genetic technologies. More recently, he has completed a book-length manuscript that addresses a number of ethical and policy issues related to precision medicine, primarily in a cancer treatment context. He also completed another book that addresses several contemporary issues related to bioethics and religion from a Rawlsian public reason perspective.

Karen Smith, LMSW, PhD, HEC-C, has been a member of hospital ethics committees for over 20 years. She is currently the Director of Ethics Integration for Henry Ford Health, a six-hospital system in metro Detroit. Smith publishes on issues related to clinical ethics the hospital setting. She specializes in death and dying issues and often works to educate the public on Advance Directive issues. She has been on the National Board for the Funeral Consumers Alliance which is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing the public education and advocacy related to after death needs.

Addressing the complex problems of health care justice generated by precision medicine

Bioethics Public Seminar Series green and white icon

The 2022-2023 Bioethics Public Seminar Series begins next month with a webinar from Center Professor Leonard M. Fleck, PhD, on “Precision Medicine and Distributive Justice: Wicked Problems for Democratic Deliberation.” This virtual event is free to attend and open to all individuals.

Wednesday, November 16, 2022
1:30-2:30 PM EST (UTC−05:00)
Zoom webinar registration: bit.ly/bioethics-fleck

Metastatic cancer and costly precision medicines generate extremely complex problems of health care justice. Targeted cancer therapies yield only very marginal gains in life expectancy for most patients at very great cost, thereby threatening the just allocation of limited health care resources. Philosophic theories of justice cannot address adequately the “wicked” ethical problems associated with these targeted therapies. Following Rawls, Fleck argues for a political conception of health care justice, and a fair and inclusive process of democratic deliberation governed by public reason. The virtue of democratic deliberation is that citizens can fashion autonomously and publicly shared understandings to fairly address the complex problems of health care justice generated by precision medicine. “Wicked” problems can metastasize if rationing decisions are made invisibly. A fair and inclusive process of democratic deliberation can make these “wicked” problems visible, and subject, to fair public reason constraints. What constrained choices do you believe you would endorse with your fellow citizens as being “just enough”?

Leonard M. FLeck

Leonard M. Fleck, PhD, is a professor in the Center for Bioethics and Social Justice and the Department of Philosophy at Michigan State University. Dr. Fleck’s interests focus on medical ethics, health care policy, priority-setting and rationing, and reproductive decision-making. He explores the role of community dialogue (rational democratic deliberation) in addressing controversial issues of ethics and public policy related to emerging genetic technologies. More recently, he has completed a book-length manuscript that addresses a number of ethical and policy issues related to precision medicine, primarily in a cancer treatment context. He also completed another book that addresses several contemporary issues related to bioethics and religion from a Rawlsian public reason perspective.

Can’t make it? All webinars are recorded and available in our archive of recorded lectures. To receive reminders before each webinar, please subscribe to our email list.

Brews and Views returns, addresses “the science and ethics of IVF and artificial wombs”

Can society and the judicial system keep pace with the technologies of in vitro fertilization (IVF), stem cell biology, artificial wombs, and in vitro gestation?

Simple green line drawing depicting a fetus and its umbilical cord inside a circular womb.

On a Friday evening in late September, there was an obvious energy in the IQ Building atrium as faculty, staff, and researchers gathered for the first in-person Brews and Views event in well over two years. Chris Contag, Director of the Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering, noted this significance as he introduced the session on “Human Reproduction in a Dish: The Science and Ethics of IVF & Artificial Wombs.”

A panel of experts sat facing the audience, ready to share their perspectives on innovations to the science of human reproduction that could dramatically impact reproductive health. These experts were Jennifer Carter-Johnson, PhD, JD, associate professor, College of Law; Leonard Fleck, PhD, professor, Center for Bioethics and Social Justice, College of Human Medicine; Richard Leach, MD, professor and chair, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, College of Human Medicine; and Margaret Petroff, PhD, professor, Department of Pathobiology & Diagnostic Investigation, College of Veterinary Medicine.

Dr. Leach, reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist, explained new developments in human gamete derivation or in vitro gametogenesis (IVG) for IVF. Citing research on this process that has been successful in mice, he explained a future where it could be possible to create human embryos by taking an adult’s cells and reprogramming them into egg and sperm cells. Asking attendees to consider this possible future, he noted that there are already three companies in the U.S. and Japan related to IVG.

How far are we from this type of assisted reproductive technology (ART) existing? Dr. Margaret Petroff shared that there currently are 2.5 million IVF cycles per year—more than 500,000 babies born each year globally. Dr. Petroff stressed that there is still much to learn about long-term health effects of ART, and that long-term epidemiological studies are needed to learn about impacts of all types of ART.

What is it that makes us human? Dr. Jennifer Carter-Johnson, who is an associate professor of law with a background in microbiology, asked attendees to think about how life is defined—ethically, scientifically, legally. She noted that there is no good definition, that discussing human life is legally ambiguous. In contrast, there is legal precedent about when human life ends. Dr. Carter-Johnson discussed the complexities and unknowns related to the June 2022 Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. Individual U.S. states are now making different decisions about access to abortion, and about how a person is defined. If life were to be legally defined as beginning at conception, that would greatly impact the current and future use of IVF and ART.

Philosopher and medical ethicist Dr. Leonard Fleck introduced the idea of an artificial womb and what medical purpose it would serve were it to exist. In theory an artificial womb might be used to save a fetus that was going to be born before viability, or by someone without a uterus. He characterized it as a micro version of a neonatal intensive care unit. The idea of an artificial womb brought up a wide variety of ethical questions related to abortion, who has the right to make decisions about a fetus in an artificial womb, and the high cost of the use of such technology creating access barriers and utilizing limited healthcare resources.

One message from the panelists in the discussion that followed was the importance of thinking about guidelines for this technology now, rather than waiting. The complexity of the topic continued to be apparent—legal, ethical, scientific, safety, health policy, and societal implications.

The question and answer portion brought forth more unique perspectives, demonstrated with both passion and vulnerability from panelists and attendees.

“We can only see a limited distance into the future when trying to assess new technologies,” stated Dr. Fleck. The event generated more questions than answers, but that is the very nature of the mission of Brews and Views. Though the event had officially ended, the room remained abuzz with conversation.

While Brews and Views continued virtually during 2020 and 2021, this event was not only the first in-person offering is years, but also the first that explored a non-COVID topic since the pandemic began. The series is an ongoing collaboration between the Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering (IQ) and the Center for Bioethics and Social Justice, and aims to hold moderated discussions addressing fascinating and provocative areas of bioscience and engineering.

Bioethics for Breakfast: Aducanumab, Alzheimer’s: Having That Conversation

Bioethics for Breakfast Seminars in Medicine, Law and Society

Leonard M. Fleck, PhD, and Irving E. Vega, PhD, presented at the March 24 Bioethics for Breakfast session, offering perspectives and insight on the topic “Aducanumab, Alzheimer’s: Having That Conversation.” Bioethics for Breakfast is generously sponsored by Hall, Render, Killian, Heath & Lyman. This session was the second of a two-part series on the theme “Paradoxes of Aging: Living Longer and Feeling Worse.” The presentation portion of the session was recorded and is available to watch on our website.

Aducanumab, a drug designed to treat Alzheimer’s disease, has been the focus of intense medical, scientific, social, and ethical controversy. The FDA Advisory Commission voted almost unanimously not to approve the drug. The research trials failed to show that aducanumab offered significant clinical benefit to patients in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and notably the enrollment of Black and Latino patients was disproportionately low. It came as a surprise that the FDA itself ultimately gave its approval to the drug, which costs $28,000 per year and is administered monthly through infusion in a hospital setting.

Fleck provided background on Aducanumab and the clinical trials carried out by the developer, Biogen, that led them to seek FDA approval. He defined the different stages of Alzheimer’s disease, noting that over six million Americans currently have been diagnosed with some degree of Alzheimer’s. Fleck also outlined the FDA’s approval process, including their vote to grant emergency use authorization with the expectation of phase four clinical trials completed within nine years. He also pointed out that Aducanumab’s effects are limited to mild cognitive impairment and mild Alzheimer’s, with no benefit in more advanced stages. However, there have been no other Alzheimer’s disease drugs in the past twenty years with promise of significant benefit.

Bringing up concerns of social justice, Fleck discussed the cost Aducanumab within U.S. health spending, particularly within the Medicare program. It is estimated that 85% of the estimated 3.1 million Americans with a mild Alzheimer’s diagnosis are Medicare eligible, meaning the annual cost to Medicare would be in the hundreds of billions of dollars for the drug and its associated costs. Fleck asked attendees to consider whether this spending would be a just use of limited health care resources.

Vega offered attendees questions to consider: is there sufficient evidence about the safety of the drug? Is there sufficient evidence about the effectiveness of the drug? Does the treatment address health disparities in Alzheimer’s disease? He discussed the biology of Alzheimer’s disease, outlining its effect on the brain, and pointing out what is still unknown about the disease. After defining scientific rigor, Vega walked attendees through concerns about the Aducanumab clinical trials, such as participant age and the inadequate representation of Black, Hispanic, American Indian or Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander populations.

Focusing on these disparities, Vega shared facts pertaining to Black Americans being twice as likely to have Alzheimer’s compared to non-Latino white Americans, and Latino Americans being 1.5 times as likely, compared to non-Latino white Americans. Disparities exist with increased likelihood of comorbidities like stroke, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. Given these facts, Vega shared concern for observed adverse side effects of Aducanumab, particularly brain swelling, microbleeds, and slow brain bleeding.

Questions from attendees generation discussion about advocacy work, insurance companies, and direct and indirect costs of Alzheimer’s disease. Fleck and Vega noted the cost of care for an individual with Alzheimer’s, in a long term care facility, is typically in the $80,000-$100,000 range per year. Indirect costs include the lost wages of caregivers, and stress experienced by loved ones. Vega also importantly pointed out the context of the approval of Aducanumab: a global pandemic, COVID-19 vaccine development, and the subsequent spread of misinformation. Attendees also participated in polling questions with hypothetical situations, asking whether they agreed or disagreed with the scenarios. Responses were varied, highlighting the complexities of the topic.

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About the speakers

Leonard M. Fleck, PhD, is a professor in the Center for Bioethics and Social Justice and the Department of Philosophy at Michigan State University. Fleck’s interests focus on medical ethics, health care policy, priority-setting and rationing, and reproductive decision-making. He explores the role of community dialogue (rational democratic deliberation) in addressing controversial issues of ethics and public policy related to emerging genetic technologies. More recently, he has been working on a book-length manuscript that addresses a number of ethical and policy issues related to precision medicine, primarily in a cancer treatment context.

Irving E. Vega, PhD, obtained his undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez Campus. He continued his research training in the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience at the Graduate School of New Brunswick, Rutgers University, earning his PhD. Vega completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Neuroscience Department at Mayo Clinic Jacksonville, where he developed his research career focusing on the pathobiology of Alzheimer’s disease. Vega joined the faculty as an associate professor in the Department of Translational Neuroscience at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine campus in Grand Rapids, MI in 2014. His research focuses on molecular and biochemical mechanisms that modulate the accumulation of pathological tau proteins in Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Vega is also working on ethnic disparities and the influence of ethnoracial factors on blood biomarkers in Alzheimer’s disease.

Bioethics for Breakfast: Social Determinants of Elders’ Health

Bioethics for Breakfast: Seminars in Medicine, Law and Society

Anne K. Hughes, PhD, MSW, and Dawn Opel, JD, PhD, presented at the December 2 Bioethics for Breakfast session, offering perspectives and insight on the topic “Social Determinants of Elders’ Health.” Bioethics for Breakfast is generously sponsored by Hall, Render, Killian, Heath & Lyman. This session was the first of a two-part series on the theme “Paradoxes of Aging: Living Longer and Feeling Worse.” The presentation portion of the session was recorded and is available to watch on our website.

Elders in the U.S. contend with chronic illness, disability, mental health disorders, and a host of other co-morbid conditions. The COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated the complex web of social, medical, and economic challenges faced by the elderly.

Anne K. Hughes, PhD, MSW, highlighted common concerns about aging and explained how those concerns affect LGBTQ+ older adults: cognitive and/or physical decline, isolation, financial/legal, living situations, and meaning making/legacy. Hughes shared the importance of health professionals asking questions rather than making assumptions when working with sexual and gender minority older adults. She also noted research showing health disparities at greater levels when compared to heterosexual older adults, even noting that much of the research data currently available is not inclusive of bisexual, transgender, or gender non-conforming older adults.

Dawn Opel, JD, PhD, presented on older adults and food insecurity in America. She addressed the invisibility of older adults experiencing hunger in America, lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, programs and services available for older adults in Michigan, and the future of food security for older adults. Regarding food insecurity, many older adults are living alone, and they may use trade-offs such as skipping their grocery trip to instead pay the rent or utility bill. The pandemic also made visible the reliance on unpaid caregiving and volunteerism for access to food. Sharing data that projects more than 20 percent of the U.S. population will be over the age of 65 by 2030, Opel asked attendees to consider the actions needed now to invest in infrastructure for the future.

Discussion during the Q&A portion included the concept of aging in place, with multiple attendees sharing personal anecdotes about older adults in their lives who wish to remain independent in their homes. Broadly, both speakers touched on the importance of having conversations early on with older adults in our lives, in order to be as prepared as possible before there is a crisis situation. Discussion also touched on the technological divide, having conversations with primary care physicians, and potential policy improvements that could improve the burden on those in paid and unpaid caregiving roles.

About the speakers

Anne K. Hughes, PhD, MSW, is Director and Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at Michigan State University. She was previously the director of the PhD program. She is co-founder of the MSU Consortium for Sexual and Gender Minority Health Across the Lifespan, an interdisciplinary research consortium established within the College of Social Science in 2019. Prior to coming to MSU Dr. Hughes had 14 years of clinical practice experience. Dr. Hughes’ research focuses primarily on older adults with chronic conditions and improving healthcare services for underserved older adults, particularly LGBTQ+ older adults. Dr. Hughes has received external funding for her research from: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), the John A. Hartford Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health. She is a Hartford Faculty Scholar in Geriatric Social Work and a Fellow in the Gerontological Society of America.

Dawn Opel, JD, PhD, is Director of Research & Strategic Initiatives and General Counsel of the Food Bank Council of Michigan, where she oversees research, data, legal, and compliance functions of the organization. A lawyer and researcher, her career has included positions in academic, nonprofit, and government sectors, and broadly, she works to build strategic partnerships for social innovation. Dr. Opel’s particular focus is developing capacity in Michigan for food-as-medicine interventions in the clinical setting, and she is currently involved in the implementation and sustainability of fresh food pharmacies for chronic disease self-management in federally-qualified health centers (FQHCs). She holds a PhD from Arizona State University and a JD from the University of North Carolina School of Law. Dr. Opel is adjunct assistant faculty at Michigan State University in the College of Arts & Letters.

Upcoming webinar on the relationship between the criminal legal system, structural racism, and health

Monday, September 13, 2021; 1:00-2:30 PM ET
Zoom registration: bit.ly/bsj-hfhs-sept13

Trauma, Community Health and the Criminal Legal System

Why should we care about the effects of incarceration and policing on communities and their health? This virtual panel discussion and audience Q&A on the relationship between the criminal legal system, structural racism, and health will also explore terminology—including “mass incarceration”—and explore different ways of thinking about trauma.

This webinar is co-presented by the Michigan State University Center for Bioethics and Social Justice and the Henry Ford Health System Health Disparities Research Collaborative. Panelists include Jennifer Cobbina, PhD, and Christina DeJong, PhD, from the Michigan State University School of Criminal Justice, Carmen McIntyre Leon, MD, from Wayne State University School of Medicine, and Center for Bioethics and Social Justice Director Sean A. Valles, PhD. Henry Ford Health System Health Disparities Research Collaborative Director Christine Joseph, PhD, will moderate the session.

This webinar is free to attend and open to all individuals. A recording will be available following the event.

About the panelists

Jennifer Cobbina, PhD

Jennifer Cobbina is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. She received her PhD in criminal justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 2009. Her primary research focuses on community responses to police violence and the strategies that communities employ to challenge police expansion and end state sanctioned violence. Her research also examines the intersection of race, gender, and how neighborhood contexts shapes crime and criminal justice practices. Finally, her work focuses on corrections, prisoner reentry and the understanding of recidivism and desistance from crime. She is the author of Hands Up, Don’t Shoot: Why the Protests in Ferguson and Baltimore Matter and How They Changed America.

Christina DeJong, PhD

Christina DeJong is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. Her research interests focus on gender, sexuality, crime, and justice. Dr. DeJong’s current work is focused on Queer Criminology, specifically the homicide of transgender people in the United States and how sexuality shapes juvenile offending. She is also currently studying bullying and misconduct in academe. Dr. DeJong received her PhD in Criminal Justice and Criminology from University of Maryland. She is an associated faculty member with the MSU Center for Gender in Global Context.

Carmen McIntyre Leon, MD

Carmen McIntyre Leon completed undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan, attended Wayne State University for medical school, and the Medical College of Pennsylvania (now Drexel) for psychiatry residency and NIMH research fellowship. She worked as medical director for partial programs, inpatient units, research units, and SUD/Methadone programs before returning to Michigan, eventually co-founding Community Network Services, an adult community mental health provider in Oakland County. After a brief stint in New Zealand she returned to Detroit to help lead the newly created Detroit Wayne Mental Health Authority as the Chief Medical Director. She is now the Associate Chair for Community Affairs and Director of Public Psychiatry Fellowship with the Wayne State University School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience; and Chief Medical Officer for the Michigan Department of Corrections.

Sean A. Valles, PhD

Sean A. Valles is director and associate professor in the Center for Bioethics and Social Justice in the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. Dr. Valles is a philosopher of health specializing in the ethical and evidentiary complexities of how social contexts combine to create patterns of inequitable health disparities. His work includes studying the challenges of responsibly using race and ethnicity concepts in monitoring health disparities, scrutinizing the rhetoric of the COVID-19 pandemic as an ‘unprecedented’ problem that could not be prepared for, and examining how biomedicine meshes with public health and population health. Dr. Valles received his PhD in History and Philosophy of Science from Indiana University Bloomington.

Christine Joseph is a Senior Epidemiologist in the Department of Public Health Sciences at Henry Ford Health System. Her research interests include racial/ethnic health disparities, adolescent health, asthma and allergic disease, adherence, and school-based health management. She has experience in the design and implementation of community-based and pragmatic clinical trials. Dr. Joseph has worked on a variety of studies focusing on vulnerable populations and social determinants of health, and has publications in the areas of asthma, food allergy, sleep, LGBTQ health, and health literacy.

Dr. Kelly-Blake presents at Michigan nutrition and dietetics conference

Photo of Karen Kelly-Blake

Center Assistant Director and Associate Professor Karen Kelly-Blake, PhD, recently presented at the Michigan Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics 2021 Virtual Spring Conference. Dr. Kelly-Blake presented on “Dietitian and Client Base Mismatch: Are There Ethical Implications?”

In this information age, the ways patients gather information about their health and how they process this information to make decisions, within the constraints of their particular social context, is of utmost importance. Dr. Kelly-Blake explained the value and ethical aspects of shared decision-making to enhance nutrition adherence goals, help practitioners understand the constraints of the dietitian and client dyad mismatch, and address this mismatch with the goal of advancing professional practice.

Listen: Social Justice-Oriented Bioethics

No Easy Answers in Bioethics Episode 25

No Easy Answers in Bioethics green circle icon

This month the Center was proud to officially announce its new name: Center for Bioethics and Social Justice. This name change reflects an updated mission with a focus on social justice-oriented bioethics. This episode features a conversation between Director Sean Valles, PhD, and Assistant Director Karen Kelly-Blake, PhD. Together they discuss moving forward in the bioethics space, what engaging in service to the people means to them, and the important work to be done to a create a healthier and more socially just world. They also explore questions related to the practical application of bioethics, and the challenge of preparing medical students for clinical practice in an inequitable world.

Ways to Listen

This episode was produced and edited by Liz McDaniel in the Center for Bioethics and Social Justice. Music: “While We Walk (2004)” by Antony Raijekov via Free Music Archive, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. Full episode transcript available.

About: No Easy Answers in Bioethics is a podcast series from the Center for Bioethics and Social Justice in the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. Center faculty and their collaborators discuss their ongoing work and research across many areas of bioethics. Episodes are hosted by H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online.

Bioethics for Breakfast: Caring with and for undocumented physicians and patients

Bioethics for Breakfast Seminars in Medicine, Law and Society

Mark G. Kuczewski, PhD, of the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine presented at the April 22 Bioethics for Breakfast session, offering perspectives and insight on the topic “Caring with and for undocumented physicians and patients.” Bioethics for Breakfast is generously sponsored by Hall, Render, Killian, Heath & Lyman.

The session addressed the contributions of undocumented immigrants to our communities in the United States, including those of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) physicians, to our healthcare system; the limits that exclusionary practices place on the contributions of undocumented immigrants to our healthcare system; and approaches to facilitating better care of undocumented immigrants in the healthcare system.

Dr. Kuczewski shared facts about undocumented immigrants in the U.S.: they number approximately 10-12 million, approximately two-thirds have lived in the U.S. for more than 10 years, they cannot buy a full-priced policy on an ACA exchange, they commit crimes at lower rates than U.S. citizens, an increasing percentage are of Asian origin, and there are fewer in the U.S. now than in 2010. He pointed out that excluding these individuals from obtaining health insurance through the Affordable Care Act ends up harming the overall pool of people in the insurance marketplace.

Dr. Kuczewski also explained how U.S. immigration policies have changed since the Clinton administration and now those policies have created barriers to entering the U.S. lawfully and with authorization, with regard to application rules and the quota system.

“This is a people issue,” said Dr. Kuczewski, adding that the stable population of 10-12 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. have healthcare needs, and need to be able to seek care. Using the example of someone in need of kidney dialysis, he pointed out that the usual route of getting Medicare coverage is not an option because federal benefits are not available to undocumented immigrants. Dr. Kuczewski highlighted the importance of hospitals and clinics caring for undocumented patients and advocating for them, in order to foster trust over fear, and in turn help to avoid negative impacts on public health.

Finally, Dr. Kuczewski discussed the challenges for DACA recipients who matriculate through medical school while being ineligible for federal student loans. The discussion portion of the session explored the importance of educating people, including politicians, on revisions to the ACA, and avenues for advocacy work for schools and universities, students, medical professionals, and instructors. Related resources are linked below.

Related Resources

About the Speaker

Mark G. Kuczewski, PhD
Mark G. Kuczewski, PhD, is the Fr. Michael I. English, S.J., Professor of Medical Ethics and the director of the Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics at the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. Mark is a past president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) and a Fellow of the Hastings Center. He has been engaged in bedside clinical ethics issues for more than 25 years. For the last decade, he has been an articulate spokesperson for the just and equitable treatment of immigrant patients. He created the Sanctuary Doctor website with Drs. Johana Mejias-Beck and Amy Blair to assist clinicians in supporting immigrant patients. He led the effort to make the Stritch School of Medicine the first medical school in the nation to openly welcome applicants who are DACA recipients.

About Bioethics for Breakfast:
In 2010, Hall, Render, Killian, Heath & Lyman invited the Center for Bioethics and Social Justice to partner on a bioethics seminar series. The Center and Hall Render invite guests from the health professions, religious and community organizations, political circles, and the academy to engage in lively discussions of topics spanning the worlds of bioethics, health law, business, and policy. For each event, the Center selects from a wide range of controversial issues and provides two presenters either from our own faculty or invited guests, who offer distinctive, and sometimes clashing, perspectives. Those brief presentations are followed by a moderated open discussion.

Listen: Insight into the Telehealth Landscape

No Easy Answers in Bioethics Episode 24

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In this episode, Senior Academic Specialist Libby Bogdan-Lovis is joined by Dr. Sarah Pletcher, Vice President and Executive Medical Director of Virtual Care at Houston Methodist. Dr. Pletcher shares her telehealth expertise in a conversation that explores the benefits of telehealth for patients and providers, the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on telehealth adoption, reimbursement models, the future of telehealth, and more.

Ways to Listen

This episode was produced and edited by Liz McDaniel in the Center for Bioethics and Social Justice. Music: “While We Walk (2004)” by Antony Raijekov via Free Music Archive, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. Full episode transcript available.

About: No Easy Answers in Bioethics is a podcast series from the Center for Bioethics and Social Justice in the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. Center faculty and their collaborators discuss their ongoing work and research across many areas of bioethics. Episodes are hosted by H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online.