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The Evolution of Hope in Advanced Illness: A Key to Health System Transformation

March 4, 2020
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Description Despite most patients’ preferences to die at home among their loved ones, many with end-stage cancer, heart failure, and other advanced illnesses spend their last days in the…

State Barriers to Home-Based End of Life Care Project: Call for Student Research Assistants image

State Barriers to Home-Based End of Life Care Project: Call for Student Research Assistants, Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School

Deadline: Open until filled.

The Problem An estimated 40 million adults in the US are living with or have had a serious illness in the last three years. Evidence demonstrates that palliative care, which focuses…

Terminally Ill, He Wanted Aid-In-Dying.: His Catholic Hospital Said No.

JoNel Aleccia. Photos by Heidi de Marco.
Kaiser Health News

[...] Even as an increasing number of U.S. states have legalized aid-in-dying laws, exercising that option is challenging for patients in a country where most large hospital systems have deep…

Providing Value and Redesigning Care for Serious Illness

April 26, 2019
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Description The shift to value-based care presents opportunities to improve care delivery for advanced illness. This panel featured thought leaders who identified key challenges and shared their visions for a…

As the end nears, who’s in control?: Center for Bioethics examines physicians’ roles in end of life and assisted dying

Alvin Powell
Harvard Gazette

When Dan Diaz’s 29-year-old wife, Brittany Maynard, finally slipped away from him, she fell first into a drug-induced sleep and then deeper, into death. Though Diaz mourned her…

Harvard Medical School Annual Bioethics Conference 2019: Controlling Death: The Policies, Practices, and Ethics of Choosing When We Die

April 11-12, 2019

Couldn't join us? Check out the Harvard Gazette's coverage of the event! Alvin Powell, "As the end nears, who’s in control?: Center for Bioethics examines physicians…

In whose best interests: The impact of globalised medicine on on withdrawal of treatment decisions in the UK

David Locke & Carmel Shachar (Executive Director)
New Law Journal

From the article: As a feature of the progressive globalisation of medicine, the recent, heavily litigated, trio of cases involving the withdrawal of treatment from infants (Charlie Gard, Isiah Haastrup…

The Development and Certification of Decision Aids: Promoting Shared Decision-Making for Patients with Serious Illness

April 18, 2018
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Couldn't join us for the event? Check out some of the panelist' slide presentations below! Decision aids can be highly-effective tools to promote shared decision making and support patients…

Harvard Medical School Annual Bioethics Conference 2018: Defining Death: Organ Transplantation and the 50-Year Legacy of the Harvard Report on Brain Death

April 11 - 13, 2018

The 2018 Annual Bioethics Conference explored the legacy of the 1968 report from the Harvard Medical School committee that proposed the concept of “brain death” as a new criterion for…

Sixth Annual Health Law Year in P/Review

December 12, 2017
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Couldn't join us? Check out the conversation on Twitter: @PetrieFlom #healthlawpreview2018 and some of our speakers' slide presentations below! Description The Sixth Annual Health Law Year in P/Review…

HLS in the World: New Technologies, New Dilemmas: Part of the HLS200 Bicentennial Celebration

October 27, 2017
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This event was part of the HLS in the World sessions of HLS │200, a bicentennial summit of academic sessions and programs devoted to legal issues of pressing importance. Panel Description …

Talking about Death

Frances Kamm (Senior Fellow Alumna)
Boston Review

From the article: We are now seeing projects directed at the general public asking people to consider how they would like to plan for their demise. Such projects can be…

Paternalism, reasonableness, and neutrality: a response to commentators

Frances Kamm (former Senior Fellow)
Journal of Medical Ethics

From the article (from the commentary on Frances Kamm's earlier article, "Advanced Care and End of Life Care: Some Cautionary Suggestions." I thank the commentators for their consideration of…

Advanced and end of life care: cautionary suggestions

Frances Kamm (former Senior Fellow)
Journal of Medical Ethics

Abstract: This article considers some clinical and population level approaches to advanced care of chronic conditions and end of life care. One approach aims to follow patient values and preferences…

Traveling for Assisted Suicide

I. Glenn Cohen (Faculty Director)
In Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: Global Views on Choosing to End Life (Michael J. Cholbi, ed.), Praeger

This book addresses key historical, scientific, legal, and philosophical issues surrounding euthanasia and assisted suicide in the United States as well as in other countries and cultures. Euthanasia was practiced…

Health Law Workshop: Frances Kamm

November 28, 2016

Presentation Topic: “Advanced and End of Life Care: Cautionary Suggestions” This paper is not available for download. To request a copy in preparation for the workshop, please contact…

Health Law Workshop: Trudo Lemmens

November 7, 2016

Presentation Topic: "While Canada Ventures into Legalized Medical Assistance in Dying, What Can It Learn from the Belgian Euthanasia Experience?" This paper is not available for download. To request a…

Religion, Medicine, and Law: Can Current Conflicts Be Healed?: HLS Dean Martha Minow to Deliver 2016 George W. Gay Lecture

Center for Bioethics, Harvard Medical School

2016 George W. Gay Lecture Religion, Medicine, and Law: Can Current Conflicts Be Healed? Martha Minow Morgan and Helen Chu Dean and Professor of Law at Harvard Law School Thursday, November 3, 2016, 4:30 …

The 21st-Century Advanced Illness Care Team: How Team-based Care is Moving Medicine Beyond the Clinic into the Home and Community

November 2, 2016
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Care for advanced illness is moving beyond the hospital and physician office and into the home and community. Addressing the needs of the individual with advanced illness increasingly requires an…

Professor offers basics of bioethics and the law in 90 minutes: Harvard expert breaks down complex topic for Ed Portal and online audience

Deborah Blackwell, reviewing lecture by I. Glenn Cohen (Faculty Director)
Harvard Gazette

On September 13, 2016, Petrie-Flom Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen delivered a lecture at the Harvard Ed Portal as part of his online EdX course "Bioethics: The Law, Medicine, and Ethics of…

Is Medical Tourism Ethical?: Profile of I. Glenn Cohen's work as a Greenwall Foundation Faculty Scholar

The Greenwall Foundation

Petrie-Flom Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen served as a Greenwall Foundation Faculty Scholar, Class of 2015. The Greenwall Foundation recently published a profile of Cohen's project, "Is Medical Tourism Ethical?": …

Bioethics and the Law of Reproductive Technology and Genetics: Free Public Lecture by Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen

Harvard Ed Portal, Allston, MA

Genetic enhancements. Reproductive technologies. Animal-human hybrids. Through new technologies and discoveries in science, we are able to do amazing things. However, these new developments have brought many questions to the…

The Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC) Launches Service Affiliate C-TAC Innovations,: Which Includes Respecting Choices®

The Coalition to Transform Care (C-TAC) is the Petrie-Flom Center's partner in the Project on Advanced Care and Health Policy, launched in March 2016. La Crosse, WI - C-TAC expands…

Leading Experts Discuss Why the Time Is Right to Transform Advanced Care image

Leading Experts Discuss Why the Time Is Right to Transform Advanced Care

Petrie-Flom Center and C-TAC

June 23, 2016—On Tuesday, June 21, The Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC), a non-profit organization with a vision of improving advanced illness care for all Americans, and the Petrie-Flom Center…

Aligning Policy and People: Why the Time is Right to Transform Advanced Care

June 21, 2016
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Couldn't join us in person? Join the conversation on Twitter! @PetrieFlom and @CTACorg are live-tweeting using #POAC #advancedcare Description This conference was the inaugural event of the Project on…

Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Brain Death

April 7, 2016

Event Description Even in the US, some controversy persists over the conceptual defensibility of brain death. Around the world, the philosophical defensibility of brain death is even more debatable. Dr.…

Petrie-Flom & Coalition to Transform Advanced Care Launch Project on Advanced Care & Health Policy

Petrie-Flom Center

The Project on Advanced Care and Health Policy will foster development of improved models of care for individuals with serious advanced illness nearing end-of-life, through interdisciplinary analysis of important health…

Euthanasia in Belgium: The Most Recent Legal Developments and Policy Challenges

November 10, 2015

A lecture by Sigrid Sterckx, Professor of Ethics and Political and Social Philosophy, Ghent University, Belgium; End-of-Life Care Research Group, Vrije Universiteit Brussel & Ghent University, Belgium; Bioethics Institute Ghent,…

Seeing Consciousness: The Promise and Perils of Brain Imaging in Disorders of Consciousness

September 29, 2015
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Event Description Modern neuroimaging technology such as functional MRI can now sometimes detect conscious awareness in patients who otherwise appear unconscious. Such a finding may or may not have major…

Existential Suffering and Cura Personalis: Dilemmas at the End-of-Life

George P. Smith II (past Visiting Scholar)
CUA Columbus School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper

Abstract: Existential, or non-somatic suffering, is often associated with the management of refractory pain at the end-stage of life. Because of misleading sympathologies, this condition is often either mis-diagnosed or…

2015 Annual Conference: Law, Religion, and Health in America

May 8 - 9, 2015
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Join the conversation on Twitter! @PetrieFlom #lawreligionhealth And check out many of the speakers' slide presentations below! Conference Description Religion and medicine have historically gone hand in hand, but increasingly…

Health Law Workshop: Robert Truog

March 2, 2015

Presentation Download the Presentation: "Defining Death: Getting It Wrong for All the Right Reasons" About the Presenter Robert D. Truog is Professor of Medical Ethics, Anaesthesiology & Pediatrics at Harvard…

Patients with Passports: Medical Tourism, Law, and Ethics

Robert Klitzman, leading discussion with I. Glenn Cohen (Faculty Director)
Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs

Live Webstream Watch the event live online! Description Medical tourism is a growing, multi-billion dollar industry involving millions of patients who travel abroad each year to get health care. Some…

Third Annual Health Law Year in P/Review collaborative blogging with Health Affairs

Petrie-Flom

The Third Annual Health Law Year in P/Review was a big success! Video will be posted on our website shortly, but our presenters will be posting on their respective…

Third Annual Health Law Year in P/Review

January 30, 2015
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Couldn't make it in person? Check out the individual sessions in the videos linked above and the collaborative blog series on the Health Affairs Blog (links below)! The Third…

Law Professor Discusses Medical Tourism

Katherine H. Scott, quoting I. Glenn Cohen (Faculty Director)
Harvard Crimson

When most people hear the word “tourism,” they immediately think of flocking to the sandy beaches of the Caribbean or exploring museums in a European city. For Harvard…

Beyond Brittany: Assisted Suicides Happen in Every State, Insiders Say

Bill Briggs, quoting I. Glenn Cohen (Faculty Director)
NBC News

From the article: [...] Indeed, one of the three choices for terminally ill Americans seeking a physician’s aid to end their lives is to “get illegal assistance in…

Doctors pushed to reject role in executions

Rachel Maddow, interviewing I. Glenn Cohen (Faculty Director)
"The Rachel Maddow Show," MSNBC

Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show to discuss his recent opinion piece in JAMA, coauthored with Robert D. Truog and Mark A. Rockoff (both of…

Tulsa Law Review special issue honoring Founding Faculty Director Einer Elhauge

Einer Elhauge (Founding Faculty Director), I. Glenn Cohen (Faculty Director), and others
Tulsa Law Review Vol. 49, Issue 3

A symposium honoring the work of Petrie-Flom Founding Faculty Director Einer Elhauge has been published by the Tulsa Law Review. The issue includes Elhauge’s article, “I'm…

Doctors assist in executions despite ethics rules

Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Seth Klamann, citing I. Glenn Cohen (Faculty Director)
LA Times

[...] A group of legal experts called the Death Penalty Committee of the Constitution Project recently recommended that doctors or other medical personnel supervise all medical aspects of executions, even when…

Physicians, Medical Ethics, and Execution by Lethal Injection

Robert D. Truog, MD; I. Glenn Cohen, JD (Faculty Director); Mark A. Rockoff, MD
JAMA

Petrie-Flom Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen has coauthored a new opinion piece now available through JAMA. From the article: In an opinion dissenting from a Supreme Court decision to deny…

Gallantly fighting windmills? Complexity of a 21st century challenge: Review of The Alzheimer Conundrum, Margaret Lock. Princeton University Press (2013)

Robin Pierce (Senior Law and Ethics Associate)
The Lancet: Neurology

Conundrum presents an intriguing picture of the state of Alzheimer's research and its abundant uncertainties. Through a series of interviews, observations, and informal conversations, medical anthropologist, Margaret Lock traverses…

2014 Annual Conference: Behavioral Economics, Law, and Health Policy

May 2 - May 3, 2014
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Couldn't join us in person at Harvard Law School? Join the conversation on Twitter using #BELHP2014! We also liveblogged the full event at Bill of Health throughout the conference…

Frances Kamm’s Bioethical Prescriptions: Book Talk and Panel Discussion

February 24, 2014
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We hosted this book talk and panel discussion for Professor Frances Kamm's latest book, Bioethical Prescriptions: To Create, End, Choose, and Improve Lives (Oxford University Press, December 2013). The book…

Now Available: Bioethical Prescriptions: To Create, End, Choose, and Improve Lives

Frances Kamm
Oxford University Press

Bioethical Prescriptions collects Frances M. Kamm's articles on bioethics, which have appeared over the last twenty-five years and which have made her among the most influential philosophers in this…

Bioethical Reflections in Honor of Dan Brock

November 22, 2013

The Conference honors Dan Brock and his contributions to bioethics. Brock has been one of the most influential figures in American bioethics. Prior to his arrival at Harvard, Dr. Brock…

Livestream of Sessions from the 2013 International Neuroethics Society Annual Meeting

November 8, 2013

The Petrie-Flom Center was pleased to host a live webstream of sessions from the International Neuroethics Society's 2013 Annual Meeting. Participants are encouraged to submit questions directly to the panels…

A Debate on Human Dignity and Bioethics

September 24, 2008

With the advance of medical technologies and the increasing power over life and death that they afford, discussions of “human dignity” have begun to take a more central…