Medical Ethics Division News
March - August 2011
Honors, Awards, and Appointments
Dr. Joseph Fins Named The E. William Davis, Jr., M.D. Professor of Medical Ethics
Dr. Fins Is Inducted into Alpha Omega Alpha and Gives AOA Distinguished Lecture
Dr. Fins was also recently inducted into Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) Honor Medical Society as a faculty member by the Weill Cornell Chapter. AOA is a professional medical organization that recognizes and advocates for excellence in scholarship and the highest ideals in the profession of medicine. In conjunction with his induction, he presented the Alpha Omega Alpha Distinguished Lecture at Weill Cornell Medical College on May 18, 2011. The title of his talk was “What if Hippocrates went to Weill Cornell Medical College?”
Teaching and Student Awards and News
Dr. Pablo Rodríguez del Pozo Receives Teaching Awards in Qatar
Pablo Rodríguez del Pozo, MD, PhD, JD, Associate Professor of Public Health in the Division of Medical Ethics/Qatar, was selected this year by the senior class at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar to receive the Humanism in Medicine Award. The award was presented at the Senior Honors Convocation in Doha on May 3, 2011. Dr. Rodríguez del Pozo also received a Faculty Teaching Award for Medicine, Patients and Society II.
Student's Mentored by Dr. Pablo Rodríguez del Pozo Win First Prize in UREP Competition
Students mentored by Dr. Rodríguez del Pozo won first prize (out of 74 projects) in the Third Undergraduate Research Experience Programme (UREP) competition under the Qatar National Research Fund. The students, Abdulhadi al-Saei, Sanah Sadiq and Arnab Chowdhury, were honored for their study, Down Syndrome in Qatar: A Survey of Public Perception and Educational Resources. The award was covered in the Dean's Bulletin, as well as in the Gulf Times.
Division of Medical Ethics Hosts Summer 2011 Interns
This summer the Department of Public Health again hosted a diverse and impressive group of interns, who participated in a wide variety of research and programmatic initiatives. Below are the interns (with their school affiliations) in the Divison of Medical Ethics, who participated in research studies under the direction of Dr. Joseph Fins and Dr. Alexandra Suppes:
- Alixandra Katz
Duke University
- Falasteen Daas
Weill Cornell Medical College/Qatar
- Daniel D. Hegg
Weill Cornell Medical College
Lectures, Conferences, and Events
Dr. Joseph Fins Presents Talks at Universities and Governmental Organizations
Joseph J. Fins, MD, FACP, Chief of the Division of Medical Ethics, the E. William Davis, Jr., MD Professor of Medical Ethics, Professor of Medicine, Public Health, and Medicine in Psychiatry, presented the following talks in May 2011:
- “Deep Brain Stimulation and Neuroethics: An Experiental Take on Scientific Progress.” Fellows’ Seminar, Bioethics Program. The National Institutes of Health. Bethesda, MD. May 11, 2011.
- "Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College." Hastings-Yale Conference on Ethics Education. Yale School of Medicine. New Haven, CT. May 17, 2011.
- "Justice, Clinical Research and the Minimally Conscious State." The President's Bioethics Commission. (Testimony by invitation.) New York, NY. May 18, 2011.
- "What if Hippocrates went to Weill Cornell Medical College?" Alpha Omega Alpha Distinguished Lecture. Weill Cornell Medical College. May 18, 2011.
- "Medical Humanities and the Measurement Trap." The National PRIME (Project to Rebalance and Integrate Medical Education) Conference on Medical Humanities, University of Louisville, KY. May 21, 2011.
On August 10 Dr. Fins also participated in a town hall discussion on the ethics of science at the end of life at a national summit on “The Science of Compassion: Future Directions in End-of-Life and Palliative Care.” The summit, which was held in Bethesda, MD, was convened by the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), a component of the National Institutes of Health. Its sponsors included several additional offices of the NIH as well. The summit’s aims were to examine the current status of end-of-life and palliative care research and practice, propose strategies to address current barriers to care, and prioritize action items to stimulate research in this area. Participants included scientists, researchers, health care providers, educators, representatives from professional organizations and members of the public.
Recent Presentations by Dr. Inmaculada de Melo-Martín
Inmaculada de Melo-Martín, PhD, Associate Professor of Public Health and Public Health in Reproductive Medicine, presented at several recent conferences: In late May she spoke on “Technology Transfer, Patenting, and the Gender Gap” at the 2011 Biennial Conference of the Society for Philosophy and Technology in Denton, TX. In late June she gave a presentation co-authored by Dr. Kristen Intemann titled “Scientific Dissent, Objectivity, and Public Policy” at the Third Biennial Conference of Society for Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice in Exeter, UK. She was also invited to speak on May 9 on “Promoting Socially Responsible Research” at the University of California at San Diego Science Studies Program.
Publications
Drs. Joseph Fins and Pablo Rodríguez del Pozo Publish Article on Hidden Curricula
In the same issue of Academic Medicine, Dr. Fins also published a letter to the editor titled “Osler, Guilds, and Community.” In the letter, he discusses his reaction to an article on the Osler Fellows at McGill University.
Dr. Inmaculada de Melo-Martín Publishes Articles in American Journal of Bioethics and Philosophy & Technology
Inmaculada de Melo-Martín, PhD, Associate Professor of Public Health and Public Health in Reproductive Medicine, published a commentary titled “IRBs and The Long-Term Social Implications of Research” in the May 2011 issue of the American Journal of Bioethics. In it, she takes issue with the argument posed in an article in the same issue that institutional review boards (IRBs) should not consider the potential long-range social and policy impact of research in the protocol review process.
Dr. de Melo-Martín is also the lead author of “Betwixt and Between: Feenberg’s Ecumenical Philosophy of Technology,” published in the June 2011 issue of Philosophy and Technology. This article is part of a book symposium that she edited in this issue entitled “Book Symposium on Andrew Feenberg's Between Reason and Experience: Essays in Technology and Modernity, Philosophy and Technology.”
Drs. Schiff, Fins, and Others Study Use of fMRI in Measuring Cognitive Functioning in Brain-Injured Patients
A study in the March 2011 issue of Brain used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to try to identify cognitive function and communication capacity in some severely brain-injured patients without the sufficient motor function to demonstrate their abilities. Titled “Dissociations between behavioural and functional magnetic resonance imaging-based evaluations of cognitive function after brain injury,” the study showed the potential for fMRI to reveal higher level functioning that a bedside exam would show.
The study’s corresponding author is Nicholas D. Schiff, MD, Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience and Public Health. The study’s co-authors include, among others, Joseph J. Fins, MD, FACP, the E. William Davis, Jr., M.D. Professor of Medical Ethics, Chief of the Division of Medical Ethics, and Professor of Medicine, Public Health, and Medicine in Psychiatry, and Jennifer E. Hersch, MBE, Research Coordinator in the Division of Medical Ethics. The lead author is Jonathan Bardin, a third-year neuroscience graduate student at Weill Cornell Medical College, and the senior author is Henning Voss, PhD, Associate Professor of Physics in Radiology at WCMC. The study, including its ethical implications, was covered in a medical college press release. The work received a great deal of publicity, and also engendered further explorations on this subject in Discover Magazine and Huffington Post.
Welcome New Faculty
Ellen C. Meltzer, MD, MSc, has joined the Division of Medical Ethics as an Assistant Professor of Public Health and Assistant Professor of Medicine. She is also an Assistant Attending Physician at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Dr. Meltzer received her AB in Spanish from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where she was on the Dean's List. She then attended the Columbia University Premedical Program before pursuing her medical degree at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. She was an Intern and Resident in Internal Medicine, a Resident in Preventive Medicine, and a Fellow in General Internal Medicine, all at Boston University Medical Center, where she was honored with the R. Knight Steel Award in Geriatric Medicine. She was then a Fellow in the CREST Program, an NIH K3-funded Clinical Research Training Program, while pursuing her MSc degree in Epidemiology from Boston University School of Public Health. Dr. Meltzer held academic positions as Teaching Associate, Clinical Fellow, and Assistant Professor at Boston University School of Medicine and was an Attending Physician at affiliated hospitals. For the past year, she has been an attending physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. Much of Dr. Meltzer's research and publications has focused on prescription drug use disorder and its ethical implications.
Welcome New Fellow
Andrew G. Shuman, MD, is a new Fellow in Public Health in the Division of Medical Ethics. He is also serving as a Fellow at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Shuman received his BS and MD degrees from the University of Michigan. He then completed his Residency in Surgery in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Michigan. For the last year of his residency, he was Administrative Chief Resident. He received several other awards as well for clinical excellence, research, and academic scholarship. He is also a member of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Triologic Society and the American Head and Neck Society. Dr. Shuman founded the Ethics Grand Rounds in the University of Michigan Department of Otolaryngology and was a member of the general medical education committee. He also lectured medical students and residents on Perspectives on Health and Health Care, surgical intern skills, clinical ethics, and anatomy. He has already first-authored more than 15 publications, and has contributed to several others. In addition he has also presented at many academic and professional conferences.
Media and Publicity
Dr. Joseph Fins’ Article on Deep Brain Stimulation for OCD Patients Receives Widespread Media Attention
The article first-authored by Joseph J. Fins, MD, FACP, Chief of the Division of Medical Ethics and Professor of Medicine, Professor of Public Health and Professor of Medicine in Psychiatry, (Misuse of The FDA’s Humanitarian Device Exemption In Deep Brain Stimulation For Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Health Affairs February 2011) has received widespread media attention. The article, which urges regulation of the FDA’s humanitarian device exemption in the use of deep brain stimulation to treat obsessive compulsive disorder, was featured by featured by The New York Times, CNN.com, Health News Digest, News Medical Net, MSNBC.com, Forbes.com, Chicago Tribune, The Huffington Post, and many other print, online, and television news outlets.
Dr. Joseph Fins Quoted about Study of Happiness of “Locked-in” Patients
Articles in the New Scientist and The Times of India feature comments of Dr. Fins about a recent study in the British Medical Journal led by Steven Laureys, MD, of the Coma Science Group at the University of Liege in Belgium. Dr. Laureys and his colleagues found that patients with locked-in syndrome are largely happier than many people would expect them to be. Dr. Fins noted that “the results show that contrary to opinion, people adapt and adjust… they can find meaning even in this state.”
Division of Medical Ethics Faculty Featured in Weill Cornell Medicine
The Weill Cornell Medicine magazine’s Spring 2011 issue discusses the work of two members of the Division of Medical Ethics: Pablo Rodríguez del Pozo, MD, PhD, JD, is mentioned in the “Tip of the Cap” section on page 9 for receiving the 2011 Humanism in Medicine Award in Qatar. The “Talk of the Gown” section on page 12 features the work of Nicholas Schiff, MD, in which he compares being in a coma with being under anesthesia.
LATEST NEWS
- Medical Ethics Division News March - August 2011
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