Archived Events

The Black Prisoners of Stateville: Race, Research, and Reckoning at the Origin of Precision Medicine. James Tabery, PhD, MA (Professor of Philosophy, Center for Health Ethics, Arts & Humanities, University of Utah) examined the history of precision medicine and its omittance of contributions made by Black research participants, March 22, 2024. 

Inequality & the Environment: Moving from Science to Action that Advances Environmental Justice and Health Equity. Lara Cushing, PhD, MPH (Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles) discussed structural determinants of environmental health disparities and community-engaged research to develop decision support tools that advance environmental justice, March 1, 2024. 

Polygenic Risk Prediction in Diverse Populations and Contexts: Scientific and Ethical Considerations. Panelists explored the scientific and ethical considerations relevant to the widespread adoption of PRS for clinical care, January 12, 2024.

Decolonize Self-Care: with Authors Alyson K. Spurgas and Zoë Meleo-Erwin. Authors Alyson K. Spurgas, PhD (Associate Professor of Sociology, Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut) and Zoë Meleo-Erwin, PhD (qualitative sociologist and former assistant professor of public health) delivered a comprehensive sociological analysis and scathing critique of the term’s capitalist, racist undertones, November 17, 2023. 

Trust Takes Two: Barriers to Trust in the Healthcare System Among Ethnically Diverse Parents. Jennifer Needle, MD, MPH (Associate Professor of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota) and Shannon Pergament, MPH MSW (Founding Member of SoLaHmo, Community University Health Care Center, University of Minnesota) explored community-centered recommendations to improve the outcomes and patient experience among ethnically diverse families of children with serious illness, November 17, 2023. 

Islam and Bioethics: What We All Need to Know. Sayed Ammar Nakshawani, PhD (Professor and Imam Ali Chair of Shia Studies, Hartford Seminary) and Sameer H. Ladha, JD (Lecturer in Bioethics, Columbia University School of Professional Studies) considered healthcare’s often limited understanding of Islam and the ways that patients’ care may be affected, October 26, 2023. 

Seen Yet Invisible: Lessons from Muslim Experiences at the Margins of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Healthcare. Aasim I. Padela, MD, MSc, FACEP (Professor of Emergency Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin) drew from the experiences of Muslim patients and providers to extend diversity, equity and inclusion conversations to the overlooked dimension of religious identity, September 22, 2023. 

The Indian Health Service: Improving Health Equity or Failing to Meet Obligations?. Panelists considered the complex laws governing Tribal and federal health programs, efforts to improve Tribal health care, and what can be done in the future for the federal government to meet its obligations, September 14, 2023.

Muslim Experiences as a Critical Lens in the “Problem” of Religion in Medicine. Aasim Padela, MD, MSC, FACEP (Professor with Tenure of Emergency Medicine, Bioethics and the Medical Humanities at Medical College of Wisconsin) gave this Pediatric Grand Rounds lecture, September 14, 2023. 

Research Ethics and Policy Series: The Burden of Uncertainty: Raising Regulatory Standards to Improve Health Equity. Reshma Ramachandran, MD, MPP, MHS (Assistant Professor of Medicine, School of Medicine, Yale University) discussed trends in the FDA’s adoption of regulatory flexibility in the approval of novel medical predicts, the implication of such policies, and proposals to center health equity in regulatory decision-making, June 14, 2023. 

Improving Racial Equity through Public Policy. Panelists considered the systematic inequities which continue to plague the United States in housing, education, employment, and wealth, among other areas. They then discussed ways to mitigate bias and discrimination and generate greater equity in social, economic, and political outcomes, June 8, 2023.

Bridging the Gap: A Church-based Initiative for Training Black Lay Ministers as Hospice Ambassadors. Justin Yu, MD, MSc (Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh) addressed the inequities existing in access to and quality of hospice and palliative care services, especially among Black Americans, June 6, 2023. 

Stories and Statistics: Balancing Trust and Proper Health Care for Black Patients. Keisha S. Ray, PhD (Assistant Professor, McGovern Center for Humanities & Ethics, UT Health Houston) discussed clinical education's use of statistical information as a general starting point for patient care, and how when the patient is from a background often marginalized in medicine, said statistics may contradict their story of health. The talk proposed ways a clinician may balance trusting the stories their Black patients tell about their health with the statistical information they have come to rely upon in order to quickly and properly treat this often mistreated racial group of people, May 11, 2023. 

Medicalizing and Criminalizing Mental Health. Panelists explored the way mental illness has routinely been both medicalized and criminalized, the impact of incarceration on mental health at large, and what work is being done to promote harm reduction in New York City and beyond, May 2, 2023. 

Equitable Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Research. Willyanne DeCormier Plosky, DrPH (Acting Program Director at the Multi-Regional Clinical Trials Center of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard) considered the persistent exclusion of people with disabilities from clinical trials despite protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections (SACHRP), and other federal and state guidance, April 28, 2022. 

Meeting Gender's End: Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness—Investigating Biases in the Modern Wellness Movement. Da’Shaun L. Harrison (author, theorist, and abolitionist) addressed how gender, just like health and desire/ability, is a system forged with the purpose of creating and maintaining a class of subjects designed to be inferior to another. Harrison then explored the stories of seven fat Black trans people—all of whom being either trans men, transmasculine, or nonbinary—and enabled them to tell their own stories to provide the data we so often lack, March 20, 2023.

Embodied Injustice: Race, Disability, and Health. Mary Crossley, JD (Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh) discussed research for her book of the same name. Recognizing that Black people and people with disabilities in the United States are distinctively disadvantaged in their encounters with the health care system, Crossley used an interdisciplinary approach, and wove health research with social science, critical approaches, and personal stories to portray the devastating effects of health injustice in America, January 26, 2023. 

Spiritual Madness: Race, Psychiatry, and African American Religions. Judith Weisenfeld, PhD (Agate Brown and George L. Collord Professor of Religion, Princeton University) explored late nineteenth and early twentieth-century psychiatric theories about race, religion, and the “normal mind.” This history of the intersections of psychiatry and African American religions shed light on how ideas about race, religion, and mental normalcy shaped African American experience in courts and mental hospitals and the role of racialization of religion played more broadly in the history of medicine, legal history, and the history of disability, December 6, 2022. 

Are Robots Racist? Rethinking Automation and Inequity in Healthcare. Ruha Benjamin, PhD (Professor of African American Studies, Princeton University) and Meghna Chakrabarti, MBA (Host and editor of WBUR’s On Point) discussed how automated systems might create or entrench unethical social practices and dynamics as well as how related disparities are worsening health gaps, November 15, 2022. 

Viral Justice: Pandemics, Policing, and Public Bioethics. Ruha Benjamin, PhD (Professor of African American Studies, Princeton University) and Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, PhD (Chief of the Division of Ethics and Professor of Medical Humanities and Ethics at Columbia University and Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons) examined how incarceration in the United States may be understood in terms of health and equity, November 1, 2022. 

Weight Discrimination and Weight Stigma: Impact on Patient Health and Healthcare. Panelists considered the ways in which weight bias interferes with effective patient care as well as strategies to reduce said bias in clinical practice and health communication, November 1, 2022. 

The Case for Health Care Reparations. Camisha Russell, PhD (Associate Professor of Philosophy and
Director of Undergraduate Studies, University of Oregon) drew on Olefumi Taiwo’s constructive view of reparations to argue that US healthcare systems must be rebuilt in the name of racial justice. Dr. Russell discussed the accumulations of advantage and disadvantage that characterize current US healthcare systems and their relationship to past harms and the US racial hierarchy. Dr. Russell also considered the relationship of healthcare-based reparations to contemporary calls for racial justice like the “Black Lives Matter” movement, October 21, 2022. 

The Anatomy of Injustice: Interventions to Treat What Ails Us. Rupa Marya, MD (Associate Professor of Medicine,
University of California, San Francisco and Author of Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice [2021]) addressed themes from the book, which is described thus: “Inflamed takes us on a medical tour through the human body--our digestive, endocrine, circulatory, respiratory, reproductive, immune, and nervous systems. Unlike a traditional anatomy book, this groundbreaking work illuminates the hidden relationships between our biological systems and the profound injustices of our political and economic systems” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, publisher), October 11, 2022. 

Decoloniality and Genetic Ancestry: Situating the “African Genome”. Alice Matimba, PhD, MS (Wellcome Connecting Science), Palwendé R. Boua, PhD (IRSS-DRCO), and moderator Henri-Michel Yéré, PhD, MA (University of Basel) took up the topic of ancestry in genomics to ask how the question of ancestry would be viewed differently from an African perspective. It highlighted the experiences of African researchers who work between Africa and the world and saw with them how these realities present themselves in their day-to-day work. This ELSI Hub Friday Forum sponsored by NHGRI was held on September 9, 2022.

Deepening Engagement and Equity in Research: Next Steps in Research Ethics. Panelists explored how to advance engaged and equitable research, discussed challenges and shared examples of successful engagement and equity efforts, and detailed how engagement can advance more equitable outcomes in precision medicine, environmental and global health, and neuroscience research, March 2, 2022.

Towards Health Equity: Dismantling Racist Barriers for Black Healthcare Students. Black students have played a pivotal role in pioneering programs and in pushing their institutions to act in ways that move towards health equity. This student-led session discussed diverse perspectives regarding ways that institutions can enact a clear “action agenda,” including concrete opportunities and responsibilities, through which everyone concerned about health equity can promote action to accelerate long-overdue progress, February 16, 2022.

Educated in a White Space: African American Graduates of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1850-1925. Vanessa Northington Gamble, MD, PhD (University Professor of Medical Humanities and Professor of American Studies, The George Washington University) examined the lives and careers of these “sisters of a darker race” who encountered race and sex discrimination as they demonstrated that medicine was Black women’s work, February 9, 2022.

Beyond Racism: Seizing Your Moment in Time and Building Forward. Panelists discussed resilience in the face of the endemic racism found in health professions education and engaged in conversation about successful education at historically Black colleges and universities and in predominately white institutions, February 2, 2022.

The transcript of Middlebury College Professor Susan Burch’s talk, Institutional Racism: Remembering Struggle, Survival, and Resistance at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, 1902-2015, presented on January 19, 2022, is available here. 

Racism, Inclusion and Justice: Interrogating Bioethics. Patricia A. King, JD (Professor Emerita, Georgetown University Law Center) brought her expertise in the study of law, medicine, ethics, and public policy to comment on issues of racism, inclusion, and justice within the field of bioethics, November 18, 2021.

Racism and Its Implications for Clinical Trials: A Workshop to Promote Understanding and Action featured a keynote address by Stephen B. Thomas, PhD (University of Maryland) Clinical Research: COVID-19 Pandemic on Building Trust Community Engaged Research and additional lectures Understanding Racial Inequities in COVD-19 Vaccine Uptake in Allegheny County with Ashley Hill, DrPH, MPH (University of Pittsburgh), Patricia Documet, MD, DrPh (University of Pittsburgh), and Uchenna Mbawuike (University of Pittsburgh), and The Challenge of Health Equity in Clinical Research with Jonathan Jackson, PhD (Massachusetts General Hospital), October 20, 2021.

Reckoning with Anti-Blackness. This session, moderated by Jennifer McCurdy, PhD, MH, BSN (University of Alaska Anchorage), discussed an anti-racism initiative co-led by Faith E. Fletcher, PhD, MA (The Hastings Center) and a diverse steering committee of justice-focused bioethics scholars, Claretta Y. Dupree, PhD, RN (RACE Affinity Group), Keisha S. Ray, PhD (University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston), and Virginia A. Brown, MA, PhD (University of Texas at Austin). This collaborative initiative reflects on the past and present work of scholars of color and envisions and frames a braver, broader, and more just bioethics for the future, October 14, 2021.

Innovation for Equity: Fostering a More Democratic & Just Scientific Enterprise. Alondra Nelson, PhD (Harold F. Linder Professor, Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University) gave the inaugural lecture in the Columbia University Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics Grand Rounds Series on Race and Biomedicine, September 23, 2021.

Homegoing: Transforming the Datafication of Black Death into the Recovery & Restoration of Black Humanity. Kim Gallon (Director, COVID Black) reflected on the counting of Black lives lost to COVID-19 and a Black health data organization that uses data to tell stories about the Black lived experience to advocate for health equity.

Genomics and Data Sovereignty: Policy and Deliberative Approaches for Engaging Indigenous Communities. Nanibaa’ Garrison, PhD and panelists Stephanie Russo Carroll, DrPH and Justin Lund, MA discussed Indigenous data sovereignty and emerging principles for data governance, how research policies work across institutions, and engaging tribes in deliberations about genomics issues to influence social and research policy, May 14, 2021.

Intersection of Race, Class and Health. Dayna Bowen Matthew, JD, PhD (Dean and Harold H. Greene Professor of Law, George Washington University) discussed themes from her books: Just Medicine: A Cure for Racial Inequality in American Health Care (2015) and Just Health: A Plan to End Structural Racism and Achieve Health Equity in America (2022), April 12, 2021.

Structural Racism in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Moving Forward, with panelists Maya Sabatello, LLB, PhD (Columbia University), Georges C. Benjamin, MD (American Public Health Association), Ruqaiijah Yearby, JD, MPH (Saint Louis University), and John Lantos, MD (Children's Mercy Kansas City), March 29, 2021. The discussion responded to Sabatello’s AJOB Target Article, Structural Racism in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Moving Forward.

Black Feminist Health Science Studies Symposium, with Ruha Benjamin, PhD (Princeton University), Harriet Washington (Science writer, editor, and medical ethicist), Evelynn Hammonds, PhD (Harvard University), Patricia Williams, JD (Northeastern University), Nicole Charles, PhD (University of Toronto Mississauga), OmiSoore Dryden, PhD (Dalhousie University), Adeola Oni-Orisan, MD, PhD (University of California), Ugo Edu, MPH, PhD (UCLA), Moya Bailey, PhD (Northeastern University), and Whitney Peoples, PhD (University of Michigan), March 18, 2021. The first Black Feminist Health Science Studies Symposium was an introduction to the field and collective that claim the name. This symposium addressed the need to integrate Black feminism into science, medicine, technology, and health. 

Policing Reproduction: From Slavery Through the Present, with Michele Bratcher Goodwin (Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Director, Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy, University of California Irvine School of Law), March 16, 2021.

Standing in the Shadow of Slavery: Race and American Gynecology's Origins, with Deirdre Cooper Owens (University of Nebraska), gave the Morris Turner Memorial Lecture, February 16, 2021.

Advancing Social Justice, Health Equity, and Community, with Patrick T. Smith, PhD, Associate Research Professor of Theological Ethics and Bioethics, Duke Divinity School and Mildred Z. Solomon, EdD, President, The Hastings Center, February 9, 2021. Drs. Smith and Solomon explored how insights afforded by Martin Luther King and the 20th century civil rights movement might help redress today’s health inequities, particularly those rendered painfully visible by the current pandemic, with members of African American and LatinX communities dying at a rate three times greater than those in White communities. 

Put Me Back Like They Found Me, with Daisy Patton (artist), Virginia Espino, PhD (oral historian and health activist) and Nilmini Rubin (the daughter of Mithra Ratne, a librarian and Sri Lankan immigrant who was sterilized following her daughter’s birth), February 8, 2021.  Artist Daisy Patton's exhibit, “Put Me Back Like They Found Me,” told the stories of female survivors of horrific, regular practices of forced sterilization in the US. Patton embroidered portraits of survivors as a nod to domestic labor, “women’s work,” and thread as a metaphor for life. 

Meeting the Moment: Bioethics in the Time of Black Lives Matter with Camisha Russell, PhD (University of Oregon) on February 2, 2021.

First Peoples Past & Present: Native Health and Voting Power, a panel discussion with Gregory Evans Dowd, PhD (University of Michigan) and Kimberly R. Huyser, PhD (University of British Columbia), addressed the current pandemic’s effects on Native communities and the resiliency of Native people, January 27, 2021.

It’s Not All Black and White: A History of Race in Medicine with Kristen Ann Ehrenberger, MD, PhD (University of Pittsburgh), January 26, 2021. Her talk begins at minute 50:30.

How Should Equity and Fairness Shape Emergency Standards of Care?, with Nneka Sederstrom and Alex London discussing ethical foundations for allocation of scarce healthcare resources during times of crisis (triage). Dr. London discussed the interplay of justice considerations, claims on society for resources necessary to achieve a “normal lifespan” (a “fair innings approach”), and Dr. Sederstrom employed a critical race theory framework to examine the impact of racism on health, healthcare, and triage decisions, January 13, 2021.

Who Takes on the Risk? Trust and Race in American Medicine with Laura Specker Sullivan, who presented this Ethics Grand Rounds lecture in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences on December 15, 2020.

Health Equity, Racism, and This Moment in Time, The Hastings Center, August 13, 2020.

Black Bioethics: Racism, Police Brutality, and What It Means for Black Health, a bioethics.net webinar hosted by associate editor Kayhan Parsi, JD, PhD, featuring panelists Keisha Ray, PhD, Brian Williams, MD, Ruqaiijah Yearby, JD, MPH, and Patrick Smith, PhD, July 18, 2020.

ELSI Friday Forum: Addressing Racism in Research and Clinical Practice.

ELSI Friday Forum: Structural Racism and Genomics in the Time of COVID.

Feminist Future Series on Anti-Racism, August – September 2020.

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) featured a talk by social justice activist Bryan Stevenson, JD, who is the Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, on November 9, 2019. View his interview with AAMC staff writer Stacey Weiner, Bryan Stevenson: It’s time to change the narrative around race and poverty, or his related 2012 TED talk, We need to talk about an injustice.