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.
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.
The MSU Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences is proud to announce its new name: Center for Bioethics and Social Justice. This name change as of April 1 reflects an updated mission with a focus on social justice-oriented bioethics. The Center has a vision of a health system that is compassionate, respectful, and responsive to people’s needs, so that equity, inclusion, and social justice are available to all.
Director Sean A. Valles, PhD
“Without an orientation, bioethics has no built-in real-world goals; it is merely a field of study. Doing social justice-oriented bioethics means we have a goal—advancing social justice in the real world with meaningful applications—as the north star for our journey as an institution,” said Center Director Sean A. Valles, PhD.
The updated name and mission follow the appointment of Valles as director earlier this year, along with the promotion of Karen Kelly-Blake, PhD, to assistant director.
“One key piece of the new name and mission is a rethinking and a recommitting of our identity,” said Valles. “The Center aims to be a hub for collaborations and conversations around the relationship between social justice and health. To do that, we will actively seek to engage with our college and university colleagues, local communities, and organizations in order to learn their concerns about the ways our society makes it hard to live a healthy life, and to begin trying to help.”
Assistant Director Karen Kelly-Blake, PhD
The Center’s mission is to educate health professionals with skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary to contribute to a world in which health practices are equitable, inclusive, and bolstered by conditions of social justice; to research the nature of bioethics and enhance its applications to the pursuit of equitable, inclusive, and just healthy societies; and to engage researchers, clinicians, policymakers, and communities around shared interests in the attainment of a healthier and more just world.
“Building bridges among MSU experts and outward to communities is of value to everyone involved,” added Valles.
The Center began in 1977 with the formation of the Medical Humanities Program. In 1988, the program became the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences. Faculty in the Center are committed to teaching medical students in the College of Human Medicine and developing social context of clinical decisions content for the Shared Discovery Curriculum. Center faculty are also committed to research, scholarship, and public outreach and education—all working toward the goal of creating a more just world.
Visit the Center’s website to learn more about its faculty and outreach activities, such as public seminars, podcast episodes, and monthly blog posts that explore timely bioethics topics.
Dr. Laura Cabrera, Assistant Professor in the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences and Department of Translational Science & Molecular Medicine, received the Teacher-Scholar Award as part of the Fall 2018 Faculty Awards from the College of Human Medicine.
This award recognizes junior faculty for achievements in the early stages of their MSU career, and for their devotion to and skill in teaching.
Episode 2 of No Easy Answers in Bioethics is now available! Guests Dr. Henry Barry, Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Development in the College of Human Medicine, and Dr. Margaret Holmes-Rovner, Professor Emerita in the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences and the Department of Medicine, discuss their often-overlapping and collaborative work in the areas of shared decision-making and evidence-based medicine. They reflect back on how they got started working in these areas at Michigan State University in the 1980s, and provide insight on where things currently stand.
This episode was produced and edited by Liz McDaniel in the Center for Ethics. Music: “While We Walk (2004)” by Antony Raijekov via Free Music Archive, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. Full transcript forthcoming.
About: No Easy Answers in Bioethics is a podcast series from the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences in the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. Each month Center for Ethics faculty and their collaborators discuss their ongoing work and research across many areas of bioethics—clinical ethics, evidence-based medicine, health policy, medical education, neuroethics, shared decision-making, and more. Episodes are hosted by H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online.
Akshay Srikanth presented the following poster at the Annual Meeting of the Michigan State Medical Society, which was held October 23-25, 2013 in Troy, MI.
“Evaluation of the use of a decision aid during diagnosis visits in early stage prostate cancer.”
Poster by Srikanth A, Kahn VC, Rovner DR, Greenwell A, Ellsworth E, Harder M, Holmes-Rovner M.
This poster evaluated the relevance of an informational decision aid during diagnosis visits in early state prostate cancer by using tape-recorded clinical encounters. Results show that a decision aid is significant during diagnosis visits through the number of times it was referenced by both the patient and physician. Additionally results show the decision aid was referenced most often in the context of treatment options and was used most often to learn more or validate something during the discussion. A decision aid can be used in cases of early stage prostate cancer to help patients make a more informed decision and may facilitate during the shared decision making process.
Akshay Srikanth is a second year College of Human Medicine student. He is working with Center faculty member Margaret Holmes-Rovner on an ongoing AHRQ (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality) funded research project titled “Clinical Communication Following a Decision Aid.”
MSU Bioethics 