Hutton Lectureship to Focus on Ethics and End of Life Care

CINCINNATI—The University of Cincinnati College of Medicine is celebrating its sixth year as host to the Hutton Lectureship in Ethics. This year’s event takes place from noon to 1 p.m. Thursday, March 11, at Kresge Auditorium and features esteemed speaker Art Leonard Caplan, PhD.

The lecture will focus on the ethical dilemmas health care providers face when science and humanity converge. Caplan will present real case histories, with decisions revolving around issues such as life support and resuscitation.

Caplan is the Emanuel and Robert Hart professor and director of the Center for Bioethics and the Sydney D. Caplan professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He writes a regular column on bioethics for MSNBC.com and is a frequent guest and commentator on various media outlets. Also the author or editor of 29 books and over 500 papers, Caplan was described as one of the 10 most influential people in science by Discover magazine in 2008 and honored as one of the 10 most influential people in the ethics of biotechnology by the editors of Nature Biotechnology.

"These lectures provide our medical students and faculty great insight beyond the basic science of medicine; it provides them the opportunity to give thoughtful consideration to all aspects of compassionate care,” says David Stern, MD, Vice President of Health Affairs and Dean of the College of Medicine.

The Hutton Lectureship in Ethics was established by the college to honor John J. Hutton, MD, who was a former dean and devoted 15 years of leadership there. In 2002, Hutton stepped down to focus on research in human molecular biology with an emphasis on the analysis of gene expression. He became professor and director of UC’s department of pediatrics in the division of biomedical informatics in June 2005.

The lectureship, established in 2004, encourages the development and maintenance of the highest standards of personal medical ethics within the University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center community.