Medical Ethics Division News
August 2010 - February 2011
Honors, Awards, and Appointments
Dr. Joseph Fins Elected to Institute of Medicine
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, was elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies, along with Cornell University President David Skorton, MD. Established in 1970 as the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine is an independent, nonprofit organization that works outside of government to provide unbiased and authoritative advice on health issues to policy makers and the public. Membership in the IOM is one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine. The Institute recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service. With this year's election, the Institute counts 1,649 active members, 75 emeritus members and 96 foreign associates. Read the Medical College press release and the IOM press release. The election was reported in Medicalnewstoday.com, Cornellsun.com, and Cornell Chronicle Online.
Public Health Faculty Appointed to New Education Unit
Madelon Finkel, PhD, Professor of Clinical Public Health and Director of the Office of Global Health Education, Joseph J. Fins, MD, Chief of the Division of Medical Ethics and Professor of Medicine, Public Health, and Medicine in Psychiatry, Carla Boutin-Foster, MD, MS, the Nanette Laitman Clinical Scholar in Public Health/Community Health and Director of the Center for Diversity, Willam B. Borden, MD, MBA, the Nanette Laitman Clinical Scholar in Public Health/Prevention and Director of the Atkins Metabolic Syndrome Curriculum, Oliver Fein, MD, Professor of Clinical Medicine and Clinical Public Health and Associate Dean of Affiliations, and Lewis Drusin, MD, MPH, Professor of Clinical Medicine and Clinical Public Health and Director of the Student Faculty Mentor Program, were appointed by Dean Antonio Gotto to serve on the Education Unit at Weill Cornell Medical College, under the direction of Senior Associate Dean Carol Storey-Johnson, MD. The Education Unit is composed of faculty who have demonstrated expertise and interest in medical education by their personal and professional experience in medical education development, course leadership, and career interest in curriculum and program development and evaluation. The new committee will play a critical role in generating ideas for curriculum reform at WCMC, examining feasibility issues related to curriculum implementation, and advise the Medical Education Council in the area of curricular innovation and opportunities for educational scholarship.
Dr. Caren Heller Serves as Peer Reviewer for Academic Medicine
Caren Heller, MD, MBA,
Associate Dean of Intercampus and Industry Initiatives, Assistant Professor of Public Health in the Division of Medical Ethics and Assistant Professor of Medicine, served as a peer reviewer for the journal Academic Medicine in 2010.
Lectures, Presentations, and Events
Dr. Joseph Fins Speaks at Brain Forum in Aspen
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, was among leading neuroscientists and engineers at a conference entitled, "Building Better Brains: Neural Prosthetics and Beyond." The program held in Aspen, Colorado, last September inaugurated the First Annual Aspen Brain Forum, which was co-sponsored by the Aspen Brain Forum Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences. The meeting highlighted the most cutting-edge developments in the new and promising field of neural prosthetics to replace motor, sensory, or cognitive functions lost by disease or injury. It included a careful review of the current obstacles to using neural prosthetics therapeutically, as well as the related ethical and regulatory issues. Dr. Fins’ talk, "When Ethics become Prosthetic: Bringing Context to the Neural Interface," concerned the societal context of communication with neural prosthetics and ways in which prosthetic tools meant to foster autonomy might inadvertently undermine self-determination. Dr. Fins also contributed to a panel that addressed "Translating Basic Research into Effective Brain Computer Interface." (To see a report of the panel discussion, click on the first link above, select the “Meeting Report” tab, and choose “Ethical Issues” from the pull-down menu.)
Dr. Joseph Fins Participates in Panel at Cruzan Conference
Dr. Fins also participated in a panel at the Cruzan Conference November 12-13 in Kansas City about the persistent vegetative state and other states of altered consciousness, as well as when nutrition and hydration should be withdrawn from such patients, and who decides. The title of the conference was “At the Epicenter: Cruzan and PSDA (Patient Self-Determination Act) 20 Years Later.” Dr. Fins’ co-panelists were Arthur L. Caplan, PhD, Professor of Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, and Glenn Edwards McGee, PhD, Chair of Bioethics at the Center for Practical Bioethics. Before the conference, Dr. Fins was interviewed by the Bioethics Channel on “The State of Altered Consciousness.”
Students Mentored by Dr. Pablo Rodríguez del Pozo Impress at Zaragoza
Under the mentorship of Pablo Rodríguez del Pozo, MD, PhD, JD, Associate Professor of Public Health/Qatar in the Division of Medical Ethics, three medical students at Weill Cornell Medical College/Qatar (Abdulhad Al-Saei, Arnab Chowdhury and Sanah Sadiq) last year conducted a study of public and family perception of Down Syndrome in Qatar. The work was supported by an Undergraduate Research Experience Project (UREP) grant from the Qatar National Research Fund. The students presented their findings at a meeting in Zaragoza, Spain, where they greatly impressed faculty and fellow students. Diario Médico, the daily newspaper that goes to all 50,000 doctors in Spain, ran a story about the students' presentation. The students’ presentation was featured in the Dean’s Bulletin as well as on the WCMC/Qatar website.
Dr. Mary Simmerling Speaks at “Women in Higher Education” Conference
Mary Simmerling, PhD, Director of Responsible Conduct of Research and Research Integrity Officer at Weill Cornell Medical College and Assistant Professor of Public Health in the Division of Medical Ethics, was an invited speaker at the conference "Women in Higher Education: Power, Progress, & the Promise of Equality" at the University of Minnesota Law School October 7-8, 2010. The conference addressed breaking the glass ceiling in leadership, pay equity, diversity, quality of life in the academy, and retaining women in leadership positions. Dr. Simmerling was on a panel of women in leadership positions in higher education that discussed “Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Women in Science, Technology, and Medicine.”
Dr. Susan Clark Ball Presents Andrew Swanson Memorial Lecture
Susan Clark Ball, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine and Associate Professor of Clinical Public Health in the Division of Medical Ethics, gave the first Andrew Swanson Memorial Lecture at the Hospital for Special Surgery on Narrative Medicine. She also was the invited speaker to Trinity School Middle School Chapel in commemoration of World AIDS Day 2010.
Publications
Dr. Joseph Fins and Others Publish Article Urging Regulation of FDA’s Humanitarian Device Exemption
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, was the lead author of an article in the February 2011 issue of Health Affairs titled “Misuse of The FDA’s Humanitarian Device Exemption In Deep Brain Stimulation For Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.” The authors are the members of a research group called Deep Brain Stimulation in Psychiatry: Guidance for Responsible Research and Application, which is funded by an unrestricted grant from the Volkswagen Foundation to Europäische Akademie GmbH (Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany) and the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Bonn. Some of the authors have disclosed potential conflicts of interest in the study manuscript.
The article concerns a provision by the Food and Drug Administration called a “humanitarian device exemption.” The exemption allows patients who suffer from rare or unusual conditions to access novel and sometimes experimental therapies. It functions by permitting a manufacturer to market a device without subjecting it to a clinical trial. The authors voice the concern that the exemption can be misused and that it needs to be more carefully regulated, specifically when it is used with psychiatric patients. They make the case for revision by examining how the law was used to approve deep brain stimulation in patients with treatment-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder, which they argue is not a rare disorder. They state that such misuse of the law could open the door to a number of other inappropriate applications of what was intended to be compassionate legislation designed for orphan disorders that affect only a few thousand Americans a year. In a New York Times article about the paper, Dr. Fins states, “We’re not against the operation, we just want to see it tested adequately before it’s called a therapy.” The paper was also covered in a Weill Cornell Medical College press release, as well as in CNN.com, Health News Digest and News Medical Net.
Dr. Joseph Fins Contributes Article on Humanities and Future of Bioethics Education
Dr. Fins published an article in the October 2010 issue of Cambridge Quarterly of HealthCare Ethics titled “The Humanities and the Future of Bioethics Education.” In the article, Dr. Fins argues that a grounding in the humanities is extremely important in producing innovative work in bioethics.
Drs. Joseph Fins and Nicholas Schiff Write About Ethical Challenges of DBS for Minimally Conscious Patients
Dr. Fins and Nicholas D. Schiff, MD, Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience and Professor of Public Health in the Division of Medical Ethics, authored “Conflicts of Interest in Deep Brain Stimulation Research and the Ethics of Transparency,” which was published in the Summer 2010 issue of Journal of Clinical Ethics. Drawing on experiences from their own research on deep brain stimulation of the central thalamus in the minimally conscious state, Drs. Fins and Schiff describe ethical challenges faced in clinical research involving medical devices. They offer several cautionary notes about its funding and the interplay of market forces and scientific inquiry, and they suggest some reforms of current practice.
Dr. Pablo Rodríguez del Pozo Publishes Article in Journal of Medical Ethics
Pablo Rodríguez del Pozo, MD, PhD, JD, Associate Professor of Public Health/Qatar, is the senior author of an article published in the January 2011 issue of Journal of Medical Ethics titled “Muslim patients and cross-gender interactions in medicine: an Islamic bioethical perspective.” The lead author is Dr. Aasim I. Padela of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The article gives suggestions to medical professionals for respectfully accommodating potential modesty needs of Muslim patients. The article was covered by The New York Times and in a Weill Cornell Medical College/Qatar press release.
New Articles by Dr. Inmaculada de Melo-Martín
Inmaculada de Melo-Martín, PhD, MS, Associate Professor of Public Health, is the author of an article in the August 2010 issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics titled “Defending human enhancement technologies: unveiling normativity.” The paper discusses why an ethical evaluation of human enhancement technologies involves more than a simple balance of their risks and benefits.
Dr. de Melo-Martín was also the author of “Human dignity in international policy documents: a useful criterion for public policy?” This article was published in the January 2011 issue of Bioethics. Dr. de Melo-Martín focuses on two documents developed by international bodies to provide guidance to governments when developing biomedical science policy: the Council of Europe's Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being and the Additional Protocol to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being. She argues that because the concept of human dignity as used in these documents is too vague and applied in contradictory ways, the documents cannot aid in identifying research that would be contrary to human dignity. Thus, they fail to guide public policy in biomedical research.
Dr. de Melo-Martín also published a comment in the January 2011 issue of the American Journal of Bioethics titled “More clarifications: on the goals of conflict of interest policies.”
Dr. Mary Simmerling Authors Ethics Course for National Transplant Surgery Fellowship Curriculum
Mary Simmerling, PhD, Director of Responsible Conduct of Research and Research Integrity Officer at Weill Cornell Medical College and Assistant Professor of Public Health in the Division of Medical Ethics, is the author of the Ethics Course for the new National Transplant Surgery Fellowship Curriculum for which she was an invited author. The Curriculum is a new initiative by the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS) that is intended to define key areas of knowledge necessary for mastery of the field of transplantation surgery and to serve as the blueprint for educational growth and development for transplant surgeons.
Division Faculty Among Contributors to Dr. Madelon Finkel's Three-Volume Text on Current Public Health Issues
Division of Medical Ethics faculty members Inmaculada de Melo-Martin, PhD, MS, and Victor Sidel, MD, are among the chapter authors of the new three-volume text by Madelon Finkel, PhD, Professor of Clinical Public Health, titled Public Health in the 21st Century (Praeger Publishing, 2011). With fifty-seven chapters by more than a hundred authors, the books tackles a wide variety of topics, from STDs to food-borne infections, prostate cancer screening to palliative care. Each of the three volumes has a theme: global population health (featuring such topics as climate change, urbanization, and nutrition in the developing world); disease management (HIV/AIDS, obesity, diabetes); and current issues in public health policy (human rights, palliative care, electronic medical records). The book publication was covered in a Dean’s Bulletin article.
New Grants
Dr. Inmaculada de Melo-Martín is Co-Investigator on Grant with Dr. Ronald Crystal
Inmaculada de Melo-Martín, PhD, MS, Associate Professor of Public Health in the Division of Medical Ethics and Associate Professor of Public Health in Reproductive Medicine, is a Co-Investigator on a grant titled “Direct CNS Administration of a Replication Deficient Adeno-Associated Virus Gene Transfer Vector Serotype rh.10 Expressing the Human CLN2 cDNA to Children with Late Infantile Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis.” Ronald Crystal, MD, Chairman of Genetic Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, is the principal investigator. This clinical therapeutic study uses a non-human primate derived adeno-associated virus serotype gene transfer vector to transfer the CLN2 cDNA to the brain of children with late infantile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis (LINCL). The grant is funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).
Dr. Pablo Rodríguez del Pozo and Students Win Qatar Foundation's 8th Cycle UREP Grant
Pablo Rodríguez del Pozo, MD, PhD, JD, Associate Professor of Public Health/Qatar in the Division of Medical Ethics, and students Deena Wafadari, Rim Elchaki and Tarek Elshazly won an Undergraduate Research Experience Project (UREP) grant from Qatar Foundation's Qatar National Research Fund. The project, entitled Doctors' Attitudes on Disclosing Information to Cancer Patients in Qatar, will survey doctors in Qatar with the aim of understanding the cultural specificities of doctors' individual policies on disclosing diagnosis to patients with cancer. The study, which is inspired by D. Oken's classic study of the 1960's, and follows a similar methodology, tries to discover what moves doctors to adopt a given policy, and thus to detect educational needs in bioethics. There are no previous studies of this kind in Qatar or the Gulf.
Read more about the award.
Welcome New Staff
Cordelia Erickson-Davis, MPH, is a part-time Research Assistant in the Division of Medical Ethics. Ms. Erickson-Davis recently completed her MPH in Sociomedical Sciences in the History and Ethics track at Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health. Her thesis was titled “Neuroimaging of Empathy: a Critical Neuroscience Perspective.” She previously earned a BA in Neuroscience and Behavior cum laude with high honors from Mount Holyoke College and a Certificate of Completion in Amazonian Resource Management and Human Ecology in Belém, Brazil, from the School of International Training in Brattleboro, VT. Ms. Erickson-Davis has participated in research studies on Parkinson’s disease and other tremor disorders, including work that stemmed from her undergraduate honors thesis. She is the primary author of two and co-author of nine published journal articles, and has contributed to 21 abstracts, four as first author. She has presented at conferences in the U.S., France, Canada, and Morocco.
Welcome New Fellows and Postdoctoral Associates
Stephanie Vertrees, MD, is a Fellow in Public Health, as part of the Weill Cornell Medical College-Hospital for Special Surgery Fellowship in Medical Ethics. Joseph J. Fins, MD, and C. Ronald McKenzie, MD, co-direct the program. Dr. Vertrees is also serving as a Fellow in Neuromuscular Medicine at HSS, working with Dale Lange, MD. Dr. Vertrees majored in the Science of Genetics at Texas A&M University, where she also founded the Student Bioethics Forum. She attended the University of Texas Medical Branch School of Medicine, and completed her Neurology residency at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, having served as administrative chief resident during her last year. In addition, she completed the Intensive Bioethics Course at Georgetown University on a scholarship from the American Academy of Neurology. During her residency, she worked with Dr. James Bernat, a highly regarded neurologist and ethicist. Among their collaborations was publication of a case study that resulted from an ethics consultation involving a request to withdraw life-sustaining treatment, and a study of "Nursing Perspectives on Confused and Agitated Patients," results of which were presented at Neurology Grand Rounds. As a Fellow in Medical Ethics, Dr. Vertrees is pursuing an independent research agenda in medical ethics and neuromuscular diseases. She is also a member of the Clinical Ethics Consultation Service and the Ethics Committee at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and she participates in the Division's educational programs in the Medical College and the two Hospitals as a lecturer and tutor.
Alexandra Suppes, PhD, MA, has been appointed as a Post-Doctoral Associate in Medical Ethics, working with Joseph Fins, MD, and Nicholas Schiff, MD. Dr. Suppes received a BA in Psychology with honors in Ethics in Society and an MA in Psychology from Stanford University. She then relocated to New York where she received another MA and a PhD in Psychology at Columbia University. She has concentrated in the areas of cultural psychology, linguistics, and the science of human relationships. Dr. Suppes’ master’s thesis at Stanford explored cross-cultural communication involving Latino and white participants. Her PhD dissertation at Columbia, “Linguistic Correlates of Social Support,” examined how people in close relationships communicate to provide support during distressing conversations. In addition, she is versed in the literature on communication and dynamics between care-taking and care-retrieving dyads, which is relevant to the assessment of the quality of communications between physicians, patients and surrogates in the setting of discussions about severe brain injury, a topic she will study during her Fellowship. She has also had special training in quantitative data analysis, and was the winner of a dissertation sponsorship award from the Society for Multivariate Experimental Psychology. At Weill Cornell, Dr. Suppes is developing a research initiative exploring the psychology and ethical implications of a linguistic study of the discourse of caregivers of patients with severe disorders of consciousness.
Faculty Promotion
Nicholas D. Schiff, MD, has been promoted to Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience (with tenure) and Professor of Public Health in the Division of Medical Ethics. Dr. Schiff is a physician-scientist with broad interests in the area of neurological disorders of consciousness. His research bridges basic neuroscience and clinical investigative studies of the pathophysiology of impaired consciousness, the neurophysiological mechanisms of arousal regulation, and the effects of deep brain electrical stimulation techniques on forebrain integration. He is Director of the Laboratory of Cognitive Neuromodulation where he conducts research examining neurophysiological mechanisms of arousal and forebrain integration as well as clinical studies of the pathophysiology of impaired consciousness. A diplomat of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, Dr. Schiff is a graduate of Stanford University (BA with Distinction and Departmental Honors, 1987) and the Cornell University Medical College (MD with Honors in Research, 1992). He completed his residency in Neurology at the New York Hospital where he trained with Drs. Fred Plum and Jerome Posner and developed his subspecialty interests in the field of impaired consciousness. He is a co-author of the fourth edition of Dr. Plum and Posner's classic textbook "The Diagnosis of Stupor and Coma." Dr. Schiff is an elected member of the American Neurological Association. His long-range goals are to develop neuromodulation strategies and improved diagnostics for the rational therapy of chronic cognitive disabilities resulting from brain injuries.
Media and Publicity
Dr. Joseph Fins Quoted in Washington Post About Scans to Measure Brain Maturity
Joseph J. Fins, MD, FACP, Chief of the Division of Medical Ethics and Professor of Medicine, Public Health, and Medicine in Psychiatry, was quoted in an article in the Washington Post discussing ethical concerns about a new scanning technique that can measure the maturity of the brain. "I could imagine someone taking a minor who would have been charged under one set of law and say, 'No, look. They have a brain that has greater maturity and we should try them as adults,'" he said. "I'm concerned about the potential misuse of the nascent technology." Dr. Fins’ comments in the article were also noted in Cornell Chronicle.
Medical Ethics Division Faculty Featured in Weill Cornell Medicine
The Weill Cornell Medicine magazine’s Summer 2010 and Fall 2010 issues includes mentions of Division of Medical Ethics faculty.
Page 10 of the Summer 2010 issue of Weill Cornell Medicine magazine includes a “Tip of the Cap” to Soumitra Eachempati, MD, who is noted for his appointment as President of the New York State Chapter of the American College of Surgeons.
The Fall 2010 issue includes on page 9 a feature about the election of Joseph J. Fins, MD, and Cornell President David Skorton, MD, to the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Fins is also mentioned on page 45 for having participated in a panel at the Cruzan Conference in November about persistent vegetative state and other states of altered consciousness. Page 11 includes a paragraph about the presentation on the perception of Down Syndrome in Qatar at a Spanish bioethics conference by students of Pablo Rodríguez del Pozo, MD, PhD, JD.
LATEST NEWS
- Medical Ethics Division News March - August 2011
- Medical Ethics Division News August 2010-February 2011
- Medical Ethics Division News June-July 2010
- Medical Ethics Division News April-May 2010
- Medical Ethics Division News February-March 2010
- Medical Ethics Division News November 2009-January 2010
- Medical Ethics Division News July-October 2009
- Medical Ethics Division News March-June 2009
- Medical Ethics Division News October 2008-February 2009
- Medical Ethics Division News September 2008
