Health Ethics Podcast

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Kyle Tafuri, a healthcare sustainability expert, about the importance of aligning environmental sustainability with the mission of healthcare systems. Tafuri emphasizes that clean air, water, and healthy soil are fundamental to health and that healthcare institutions, as major employers and resource users, have both an ethical obligation and strategic opportunity to lead in sustainability.

Kyle Tafuri is Vice President of Sustainability, Hackensack Meridian Health.

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Dr. Lawrence Rosen about how advocacy extends beyond individual patient care to include public health, policy reform, and environmental sustainability. Rosen argues that physicians have an ethical obligation to use their trusted position to defend and promote health at all levels.

Lawrence Rosen, MD is an Integrative Pediatrician and Founder of The Whole Child Center & Associate Professor at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine.

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Dr. Arthur Caplan about on the evolution of bioethics from an academic niche to a more public-facing discipline that now must address misinformation and political polarization.

Dr. Arthur Caplan is the Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor and founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Department of Population Health.

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Dr. Lori Bruce on the ethical concerns surrounding baby boxes—devices used for the anonymous surrender of infants under Safe Haven laws. While good intentioned, Bruce argues these boxes lack regulation, informed consent, and support for vulnerable mothers. Evidence-based alternatives like confidential births and crisis counseling to better support families are discussed.

Dr. Lori Bruce is Associate Director, Center for Bioethics, at the Yale School of Medicine.

Episode Resources:
Summer bioethics program:
https://bioethics.yale.edu/summer

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Dr. Jeffrey Boscamp about the decline in public trust in science, particularly around vaccines, and notes that this erosion affects not only individual health decisions but also community well-being.

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Nanette Elster, JD, MPH and Kayhan Parsi, JD, PhD about the need for both legal and societal frameworks to ensure the rights and well-being of neurodivergent individuals.

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington talks to Dr. James O’Brien about his co-authored article in American Journal of Perinatology.

O'Brien JA, Lewkowitz AK, Main EK, Adashi EY. The Ongoing U.S. Struggle with Maternal Mortality. Am J Perinatol. Published online October 10, 2024. doi:10.1055/a-2404-8035

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington talks to Dr. Robert Klitzman  about his book, Doctor, Will You Pray for Me?: Medicine, Chaplains, and Healing the Whole Person. 

Robert Klitzman, MD, is a Professor of Psychiatry in the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Joseph Mailman School of Public Health, and the Director of the Masters of Bioethics Program at Columbia University. He has authored or co-authored over 180 scientific articles, and nine books, including When Doctors Become Parents, and has received several awards, including fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. He...

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington talks to Dr. Paul Snelling, Principal Lecturer in Adult Nursing at University of Worcester, about his 2024 Nursing Ethics article, “Am I my students’ nurse? Reflections on the nursing ethics of nursing education,” which explores the student–nurse academic relationship vis-à-vis the patient–nurse relationship.

Snelling P. Am I my students’ nurse? Reflections on the nursing ethics of nursing education. Nursing Ethics. 2024;31(1):52-64. doi:10.1177/09697330231193858

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington talks to Dr. Thomas Nasca, ACGME President and Chief Executive Officer, about the crucial role of trust in medicine, emphasizing its importance in medical education, the physician-patient relationship, and addressing systemic issues in healthcare, such as burnout and moral distress. Without trust, the healthcare system risks failing both its providers and patients.

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington talks to Dr. Keisha Ray about her 2024 co-authored American Journal of Bioethics article, “The Bioethics of Environmental Injustice: Ethical, Legal, and Clinical Implications of Unhealthy Environments” and her book, Black Health: The Social, Political, and Cultural Determinants of Black People’s Health.

Keisha Ray is an Associate Professor of bioethics and medical humanities at McGovern Medical School in Houston, Texas. Her research focuses on the socio-political determinants of Black people's health and exposing structural racism's effects on Black people's health and wellbeing.

In this episdoe, Bryan Pilkington, PhD speaks to Carl Elliott, MD, PhD, professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota. His latest book, The Occasional Human Sacrifice: Medical Experimentation and the Price of Saying No, is out now (W. W. Norton & Company, 2024). The Occassional Human Sacrifice details shocking cases of abusive medical research and the whistleblowers who spoke out against them, sometimes at the expense of their careers.

Carl Elliott's website: https://www.carl-elliott.com/

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Charles E. Binkley, MD.

Charles Binkley is a liver and pancreas surgeon, bioethicist, Director of Bioethics at Hackensack Meridian Health, and Associate Professor of Surgery at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine. His work focuses on the ethical use of AI to improve clinical decision making.

He is the co-author of Encoding Bioethics: AI in Clinical Decision-Making (University of California Press, 2024) with Tyler Loftus.

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks to Dr. Samuel Doernberg and Dr. Robert Truog about their recent paper in the American Journal of Bioethics entitled, "Spheres of Morality: The Ethical Codes of the Medical Profession."

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks to Dr. David J. Skorton about academic freedom.

David J. Skorton, MD, is president and CEO of the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges), a not-for-profit association that represents medical schools, teaching hospitals and health systems, and academic societies.

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks to Dr. Jason Adam Wasserman about Institutional Conscience. His new article is:
Wasserman JA, Brummett AL, Navin MC, Menkes DL. Conscientious Objection to Aggressive Interventions for Patients in a Vegetative State. Am J Bioeth. Published online November 30, 2023. doi:10.1080/15265161.2023.2280099. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38032547/

Dr. Wasserman is Professor of Foundational Medical Studies at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine, where he also holds an appointment in Pediatrics, is the course director for the Medical Humanities and Clinical Bioethics curriculum, serves as the Founding D...

If we demand informed consent for individuals, why don't we demand it for all of society? In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks to Dr. Brian Patrick Green about technology and societal informed consent. 

Brian Patrick Green is the director of technology ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University and teaches AI ethics in Santa Clara University’s Graduate School of Engineering. His work focuses on AI and ethics, technology ethics in corporations, the ethics of space exploration and use, the ethics of technological manipulation of h...

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks to Dr. Jamie Carlin Watson, clinical ethicist for the Cleveland Clinic Center for Bioethics. Watson is the author of several books, including: A History and Philosophy of Expertise: The Nature and Limits of Authority (Bloomsbury, 2022), Expertise: A Philosophical Introduction (Bloomsbury 2020), and Moral Expertise: New Essays from Theoretical and Clinical Bioethics, edited with Laura K. Guidry-Grimes (Springer, 2018). https://jamiecarlinwatson.weebly.com/

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks to Dr. Philip Alberti, Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) senior director of health equity research and policy, and founding director of the Center for Health Justice. Dr. Alberti's work is fueled by the belief that solutions to health injustice exist within communities themselves, and that the path to better health goes beyond medical care to working alongside partners across multiple sectors that impact our everyday lives. Dr. Alberti's most recent publication is "A Population Health Impact Pyramid for Health Care" (Milbank Quarterly, 2023 Apr;101(S1):770-794.)

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks to Dr. Frederic W. Hafferty, professor of medical education at the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota. He is the author of “Into the Valley: Death and the Socialization of Medical Students” (Yale University Press); “The Changing Medical Profession: An International Perspective” (Oxford University Press), with John McKinlay; “Sociology and Complexity Science: A New Field of Inquiry” (Springer) with Brian Castellani, “The Hidden Curriculum in Health Professions Education” (Dartmouth College Press) with Joseph O’Donnell, “Understanding Professionalism” (Lange) with Wendy Levinson, Katherine Lucy, and Shiphra Ginsburg and “Place and Health as Complex Systems: A Case study and Empirical...

In this episode of the COVID Ethics Series Podcast, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Dr. Joel Reynolds, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Disability Studies at Georgetown University, Senior Research Scholar in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Senior Bioethics Advisor to and Fellow of The Hastings Center, and Faculty Scholar of The Greenwall Foundation. Dr. Reynolds is especially concerned with the meaning of disability, the issue of ableism, and how philosophical inquiry into each might improve the lives of disabled people and the justness of practices in medicine, science, politics, and law.

Joel Reynolds can be found at https...

In this episode of the COVID Ethics Series Podcast, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Charles Binkley, M.D., FACS, HEC-C, the director of Bioethics for the health network’s Central Region, and also an associate professor of Surgery at the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine on his recent New England Journal of Medicine paper, “From the Eyeball Test to the Algorithm – Quality of Life, Disability Status, and Clinical Decision Making in Surgery,” which contends that more data and an empirical framework involving algorithms would aid doctors, who must seek out more input than just their sole observation of the patient in decid...

In this episode of the COVID Ethics Series Podcast, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Dr. Eli Adashi. Dr. Adashi served as the Fifth Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences at Brown University, and is presently a tenured Professor of Medical Science with the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Since 2008, Adashi has undertaken to focus on matters of policy at the nexus of medicine, law, ethics, and social justice.

In this episode of the COVID Ethics Series Podcast, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks to bioethicist, Dr. Nancy Berlinger. Berlinger is a Research Scholar at The Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institute based in Garrison, NY. Her current research focuses on ethical and societal challenges arising from population aging; the bioethics of migration, and responding to and learning from the Covid-19 pandemic.

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Rui Nunes, professor of bioethics at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto. Professor Nunes is also the president and founder of the Portuguese Association of Bioethics and is a member of the Portuguese National Council of Ethics for Life Sciences. His most recent book is "Healthcare as a Universal Human Right: Sustainability in Global Health" (Taylor & Francis, 2022).

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Scott Schweikart, JD, MBE, Senior Research Associate at the American Medical Association and legal editor of the AMA's Journal of Ethics. They discuss AMA's COVID-19 Ethics Guidance website (https://www.ama-assn.org/topics/covid-19-ethics-guidance) in addition to issues surrounding vaccine hesitancy, physicians as models of good health behavior, and our society's current distrust of science and medicine.

In Conscience, Vaccines, and the Obligations of Community, a panel of experts discusses respect for individual conscience and decision making and how to balance this with the health needs of communities. Considerations of conscientious objection, vaccine hesitancy, and the role of philosophical and religious concerns in requesting exemptions are to be discussed.

Recorded on February 10, 2022.

Panelists:

-Jason T. Eberl, PhD, Director; Professor, Albert Gnaegi Center for Health Care Ethics, Saint Louis University
-Paul Cummins, PhD, Research Assistant Professor, Bioethics Clarkson University
-Kirk Johnson, MDiv, DMH, Assistant Professor, Justice Studies Montclair State University

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Cindy Smalletz on her work in narrative medicine, and how narrative medicine has impacted her practice of Occupational Therapy.

Cindy Smalletz, MS, MS, MA is Program Director for the Division of Narrative Medicine in the Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Most recently, she completed an MS in Occupational Therapy and plans to further bring together narrative medicine with clinical care, burnout prevention, and education, with the hopes of changing healthcare around the world through improving advocacy, education, communication and action.

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As COVID-19 continues to affect communities across the globe, we turn to the stories and depictions – narrative and graphic – behind COVID with the hope of gaining a better understanding of its impact and how we may move forward ethically. Prof. Bryan Pilkington speaks with a multi-disciplinary panel of experts about narrative and graphic medicine in the time of COVID.

Panelists:

Cindy Smalletz, MS, OTR/L, Program Director, Division of Narrative Medicine, Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Matthew Noe, MLIS, Lead Collection & Knowledge Management Librarian, Countway Library, Harvard Medical School
Allison Zuckerberg, Medical Student, Hackensack Meri...

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Dr. Kirk A Johnson on the impact COVID has had on American understanding of systemic racism, as well as the factors that influence vaccine hesitancy and mistrust in people of color.

Dr. Kirk A Johnson a Professor at Montclair State University who teaches courses in Justice Studies, Medical Humanities, Bioethics, Global Issues, and Religion. He received his Masters of Divinity (MDiv) from Drew Theological School and his Doctorate in Medical Humanities (DMH) from Drew University. His recent books are "The Anti-Racism Resource Guide Volume One: Supporting Black Businesses and Economics"...

The questions relating to medical equipment disposal and decommissioning are many and varied. In this episode, host Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Jennifer Orth about her work as the lead of Re-MERGE, Reprocessing Medical Equipment: Rotarian Research Group for the Environment, through the International Rotary Fellowship of Healthcare Professionals. Jennifer is a Biochemistry and Philosophy double major in Seton Hall University's pre-medical program with a strong interest in bioethics and the medical humanities.

In this episode, Host Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks to Dr. Sherry Greenberg, Associate Professor at Seton Hall University College of Nursing and nurse practitioner faculty consultant on the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Age-Friendly Health Systems Action Community initiative.

Dr. Bryan Pilkington in conversation with Mark Fuller Sewell, MD, a specialty care physician board certified in maternal-fetal medicine and obstetrics and gynecology.

Featuring Emma Goldberg, author of "Life on the Line: Young Doctors Come of Age in a Pandemic" and writer for The New York Times; Nick Cozzarelli, medical student at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine; and Alex Tannenbaum, medical student at University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

COVID Ethics Series Podcast host Dr. Bryan Pilkington sits down with Dr. Maryanne Giuliante, Advanced Practice Provider Manager for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s Westchester Regional Network in West Harrison, NY, and a triple board certified as a bioethicist, an Adult Nurse Practitioner, and an Advanced Nurse Executive.

In this episode, Dr. Giuliante speaks of her experience as a COVID patient during the early days of the pandemic and addresses bioethical questions, such as vaccine hesitancy, through her experience as COVID patient, healthcare provider, and bioethicist.

Host Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks to Father Colin Kay, Vice President for Mission and Ministry at Seton Hall University, on the concept of "Social UNdistancing," spirituality and community health during COVID, religious exemptions, and more.

In Expertise in the Time of COVID: Who has it? Who should have it?, a panel of experts discusses the roles that authority, information literacy, and reasoning in situations of uncertainty have in responding ethically to a pandemic. In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with a multi-disciplinary panel about the importance of expertise and how it has played out in the time of COVID. Panelists, including Chelsea Barrett (Seton Hall Libraries), Jennifer Oliva (Seton Hall University Law School), Kayhan Parsi (Loyola University), and Peter Wicks (Elm Institute), will discuss the role of expertise from their disciplines.

Panelists:<...

On Lonely Deaths: COVID, Community, & the Lost Art of Dying Well with Dr. Lydia Dugdale was recorded live on Thursday, April 29. The event's co-sponsors were the Center for Catholic Studies, the IHS Library, with IHS Bioethics. The event was moderated by Dr. Bryan Pilkington.

Lydia Dugdale, MD, MAR (ethics), is the Dorothy L. and Daniel H. Silberberg Associate Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and Director of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. She also serves as Associate Director of Clinical Ethics at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She is...

In this episode of the COVID Ethics Series Podcast, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Denice Ochola, MPH, a Contact Tracer with NYC Health + Hospitals.

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Dr. Tade Ayeni, the Director of Diversity and Equity at Hackensack School of Medicine.