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Washington, D.C. — Health care policy makers, ethicists and other health professionals are gathering at Georgetown University Medical Center for "Just Health Care: Moral Critique, Outrage, and Response," a two-day conference Thursday and Friday, April 11 and 12. They will critique the state of health care in the United States, reflect on the health reform movement, and explore the role of ethicists and health professionals in effecting just health care.
"U.S. health care is neither just nor sustainable," said Ann Neale, PhD, senior research scholar at Georgetown's Center for Clinical Bioethics and organizer of this conference. "Policy discussion tends to be short on moral deliberation. Ethicists haven't adequately engaged their policy colleagues. This disconnect negatively affects civic discourse and resolution of the complex challenges facing U.S. health care."
The conference will raise philosophical, ethical and cultural issues that include notions such as limits and the common good-as opposed to focusing on specific policy proposals (employer-based insurance supplemented by private insurance vs. national health care). A central theme will be the importance of a national civic dialogue that grapples with the moral dimensions of the problems facing U.S. health care.
Participants include Paul Begala, formerly a political adviser to President Bill Clinton and current research professor of government and public policy at Georgetown; Sheila Burke, formerly chief of staff for Sen. Bob Dole and now Smithsonian Undersecretary for American Museums and National Programs; Daniel Callahan, PhD, of the Hastings Center; and Judith Feder, PhD, dean for policy studies and professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute.
Members of the media who would like to attend the conference must RSVP to Beth Porter at (202) 687-4699. For more information, including a conference schedule and a complete list of speakers, visit
http://clinicalbioethics.georgetown.edu.
About Georgetown's Center for Clinical Bioethics
The Center for Clinical Bioethics is a university-based ethics resource for those who shape and give health care. Committed to the dynamic interplay between theory and practice, experience, and reflection, Center scholars bring expertise in theology, philosophy, basic science and clinical practice to today's ethical challenges.The Center seeks to promote serious ethical reflection and discourse in pursuit of a just society and health care that affirms the dignity and social nature of all persons.
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