Past Events Archive
The views expressed by webinar speakers are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of individual Center for Bioethics faculty. The Center for Bioethics does not take positions on specific issues, and the hosting or posting online of a webinar does not imply endorsement of any views expressed by the speakers.
2025
Unrepresented: The Ethics of Caring for Patients Without Surrogates
- Jaime Konerman-Sease, PhD, HEC-C
When patients can’t decide for themselves, we rely on surrogates to decide on their behalf. However, clinicians often face the challenge of caring for patients who have no available surrogates. How do we make decisions for patients when…
Moral Distress and Burnout Among OB-GYNs After Dobbs
- Mara Buchbinder, PhD
Since the US Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, 17 U.S. states have functionally banned abortion, creating clinical and ethical challenges for physicians practicing in these jurisdictions. In this presentation, Dr.…
Oaths and Expertise: The Bioethical Consequences of Health Policy as Medical Decision-Making
- Meredithe McNamara, MD, MS, FAAP
Public Perceptions of Health Equity and How Communication Can Shape Understanding and Action
- Sarah Gollust, PhD
Health equity is a particularly politically-charged construct in the U.S. in 2025. However, public understanding of concepts related to health equity and health disparities has been polarized along political party lines for many years. Dr…
To Suffer What We Can't Evade: What is Medicine’s Role in Responding to Suffering?
- Tyler Tate, MD, MA
In medicine, suffering matters: encountering suffering and helping patients cope with, and navigate through suffering, are key functions of healthcare. In addition, the concept of suffering plays an important role in many high-stake areas…
What Would You Want? Navigating Life, Death, and Organ Donation When the Heart Stops
- Brendan Parent, JD
Donation after circulatory death (DCD) is one of the most promising methods for expanding the organ pool for transplantation. Yet realizing the promise of DCD depends on careful coordination of end-of-life treatment with organ donation…
Whose Job Is It, Anyway? The Ethics and Management of Hospital Efforts on Social Determinants of Health
- Kelsey N. Berry, PhD
Hospitals and other health care organizations face myriad opportunities to advance their ethical commitments to health equity, including through activities that fall outside the bounds of their traditional role of caring for the sick. In…
Where Do We Go From Here? Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Pediatric Health Disparities in 2025 and Beyond
- Monique Jindal, MD, MPH
- Nathan T. Chomilo, MD, FAAP, FACP
This webinar will explore how structural policies shape pediatric health disparities and what is possible in 2025 to advance health equity. Reflecting on parallels between our current climate and discourse with what Dr. Martin Luther King…
How Can a Patient Be Dead While Their Heart Still Beats? Addressing Ethical Challenges in the Determination of “Brain Death”/Death by Neurological Criteria
- Margy McCullough-Hicks, MD, University of Minnesota.
- Benjamin Miller, MD, University of Minnesota.
- Joel Wu, JD, MPH, MA, HEC-C, University of Minnesota.
The determination of a person’s death is an important process involving both medical and societal considerations. Controversy and confusion regarding the determination of death by neurologic criteria persist at the bedside, in the…
Environmental Injustice: The Clinical and Ethical Implications of Our Unhealthy Environments
- Keisha Ray, PhD
Our health is largely determined by our social environments and that includes our physical environments. Our health is directly impacted by the location of oil and gas facilities, the amount of plastics and carcinogens in our drinking…