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April 5, 2017, 12:30 PM

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Crowdfunding for medical care—seeking financial contributions from a large number of donors, often via social networks, to pay medical expenses—is growing in popularity in both the US and Canada. While the practice can have tangible benefits for some patients, it also raises challenging ethical and equity questions at the social level and for individual donors and campaigners. In this lecture, Professor Valorie Crooks examined some of these questions, identified important directions for ethics-focused research, and discussed what we know about the medical expenses people are seeking to have covered.

Valorie Crooks, PhD, is a Full Professor and health geographer at Simon Fraser University (Canada). She holds the Canada Research Chair in Health Service Geographies and a Scholar Award from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research. She has authored more than 150 articles, chapters, and commentaries and leads a well funded research program that examines health care mobility and access.

Responding: I. Glenn Cohen, JD, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, and Faculty Director, the Petrie-Flom Center.

This event was free and open to the public.

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Sponsored by the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School and the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School, with support from the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund at Harvard University.


Videos

VIDEO: I. Glenn Cohen, Introduction

VIDEO: Valorie Crooks, Crowdfunding Medical Care

VIDEO: Audience Q & A

Tags

bioethics   health care finance   health information technology   international   medical tourism   public health