Conferences and Lectures
The Albert Gnaegi Center for Health Care Ethics at Saint Louis University sponsors two endowed lectures each year, along with a student research conference.
Annual Health Care Ethics Research Conference
SLU's Health Care Ethics Research Conference, started in 2014, is an annual opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students to present research on health care ethics to an interdisciplinary audience.
This conference fosters advanced academic discourse in fields related to health care ethics, highlights student research, and increases awareness of ethical issues in science and medicine to the wider community.
The 2025 keynote speaker and distinguished lecturer will be Keith Wailoo, Ph.D. The lecture, "The Politics of Pain: Opioids, Race, and Relief in America" will start at noon, Friday, April 11 in Cook Hall's Anheuser-Busch Auditorium. Immediately following the lecture, conference breakout sessions will start.
Any questions or concerns can be directed to Matilda Ajibola via email.
Find More Details on the 2025 Health Care Ethics Research Conference
Edward J. Drummond Lecture Series
The Edward J. Drummond Lecture Series was established in honor of the late Edward J. Drummond, S.J. A Jesuit and an alumnus, Drummond served as the first vice president for SLU’s Medical Center.
Drummond's dedication to his vocation and his vision for the medical center can be summed up in his words, spoken in 1964: "This must be a place where learning continues, and care is delivered in an atmosphere that remains personal in an increasingly technological society. We must be dedicated to scientific truth and committed to a tradition that sets medical knowledge and medical service in a significant relationship to God and our fellow men and women.
The 2024 Drummond Lecture will be from noon to 1 p.m. on Friday, November 22. This year's lecture is titled, "Ethics, Equity, and Clinical Reasoning with Artificial Intelligence," presented by Benjamin Collins, M.D. The Drummond Lecture is done in conjunction with the Internal Medicine Grand Rounds (IMSLUGR) and will be at SSM/CSM on the second floor conference rooms D & E.
Nov. 22, 2024 - Benjamin Collins, MD, "Ethics, Equity, and Clinical Reasoning with Artificial Intelligence"
Sept. 9, 2023 - Ana S. Iltis, Ph.D., "Bringing a Health Disparities and Health Equity Lens to Clinical Research and Practice"
Feb. 11, 2022 - Matthew Liao, D.Phil, "Ethics of AI and Health Care: Towards a Substantive Human Rights Framework"
May 7, 2021 - Yolonda Wilson, Ph.D., "Feminist Bioethics as Public Practice"
March 21, 2019 - Benjamin Wilfond, M.D., "Technological Interventions in Children
with Profound Disabilities: Navigating Family & Professional Values."
March 2, 2018 - Joseph J Fins, "Disorders of Consciousness and Disability Rights:
When Neuroscience meets Neuroethics"
Nov. 18, 2016 - Brian Williams (HEALTH AND SOCIAL JUSTICE conference) "Breaking the
Silence: A Candid Look at Race and Violence in America"
Feb. 26, 2016 – Dorothy Roberts, JD, "Mistreating Health Inequities: Race, Medicine,
and Justice"
March 27, 2015 – Jeffrey P. Bishop, M.D., Ph.D., "Popular Neuroscience and Political
Schemes"
March 21, 2014 – Larry R. Churchill, Ph.D., "Patients: The Neglected Source for Medical
Ethics"
May 10, 2013 – Farr A. Curlin, M.D., "What has religion to do with the practice of
medicine?"
April 13, 2012 – James W. Pichert, Ph.D., "Promoting Professionalism and Professional
Accountability in Pursuit of a Culture of Safety"
April 15, 2011 – Peter A. Lawler, Ph.D., "Virtue and the Prospect of Indefinite Longevity"
April 9, 2010 – Mark Siegler, M.D., "Primary Care Physicians' Views on Health Reform and End of Life Care"
April 3, 2009 – Edmund D. Pellegrino, M.D., MACP, "Autonomy as a Positive Right: The Danger of Moral Abandonment"
March 14, 2008 – Douglas S. Diekema, M.D., M.P.H., "The Ashley Case Revisited: Reflections on Health Care Decision-making."
March 30, 2007 – Ron Hamel, Ph.D., "A Matter of Conscience: The Scope & Limits of Health Professionals' Refusals."
April 7, 2006 – Nancy Dubler, LLB, "Bioethics Mediation."
April 8, 2005 – Tod Chambers, Ph.D., "The Bioethicist's Audience is Always a Fiction."
March 5, 2004 – Rebecca Dresser, JD, "The President's Council on Bioethics Work on Cloning and Stem Cell Research: An Insider's Perspective."
March 14, 2003 – Daniel Sulmasy, M.D., Ph.D., OFM, "The Ethics of Terminal Sedation"
April 11, 2002 – Jerry Menikoff, M.D., JD, M.P.H., "Promising Experimental Medical Treatments - For Research Subjects Only?"
March 30, 2001 – Gerard Magill, Ph.D., "Ethics of Stem Cell Research"
March 3, 2000 – Gerard Magill, Ph.D., Joan Carter, Ph.D. and C. Griffin Trotter, M.D., Ph.D., "Unions and Catholic Healthcare"
April 16, 1999 – Kenneth V. Iserson, M.D., "They're Dead, Now What? Reflections on the Treatment of Dead Bodies"
March 27, 1998 – James DuBois, Ph.D., DSc and Harvey Solomon, M.D., "The Ethics of Non-Heart Beating Organ Donation"
April 25, 1997 – Edmund Pellegrino, M.D., "Ethics in Medicine"
March 22, 1996 – Norman Desbiens, M.D., "Ethical Issues in Care of the Dying" Lessons from the SUPPORT Study
March 17, 1995 – Lawrence Schneiderman, M.D., "Beyond Futility to an Ethic of Care"
April 22, 1994 – Troyen Brennan, M.D., "Health Care Reform: Ethical Issues"
April 2, 1993 – Kathleen M. Foley, M.D., "Cancer Pain"
April 24, 1992 – Hugh Straley, M.D., "Physician Assisted Suicide: Ethical Issues"
March 1, 1991 – Edmund Pellegrino, M.D., "Economics & Medicine: Ethics Challenges..Ethical Responses"
March 30, 1990 – Ezekiel Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D., "Four Models of Physician-Patient Relationship"
March 17, 1989 – Kathleen Nolan, M.D., "Probing Our Genes: Ethical Implications of Mapping the Human Genome"
December 3-4, 1987 – Mervyn Silverman, M.D., "AIDS: The Ethical Dilemmas"
March 20, 1987 – Robert Heaney, M.D., "Technology & The Human Response"
Feb. 10, 1986 – Ned Cassem, S.J., M.D., "Contemporary Ethical Issues in Medical Care"
Distinguished Lecture Series
The Distinguished Lecture Series invites internationally established ethicists to lecture at Saint Louis University. The series aims to discuss major emerging issues in health care ethics with faculty, doctoral students, and the larger University community.
The 2025 Distinguished lecturer will be Keith Wailoo, Ph.D. The lecture will be at noon, Friday, April 11 in Cook Hall's Anheuser-Busch Auditorium. The breakout sessions for the conference will start at 1:15 p.m., immediately following the lecture.
If you'd like to attend via Zoom, please email Adrienne McCarthy.
5/5/23 - Joseph A. Stramondo, Ph.D., "The Social Costs and Benefits of Choosing Disability"
12/2/22 - Miguel J. Romero, Th.D., "Disability, Beauty, and Health Care Ethics: An Impractical Theological Proposal?"
4/29/22 - Alexandre Andrade Martins, Ph.D., "Beyond the Conventional: A New Epistemology for Bioethics in Global Health"
10/15/18 - Christina Bieber Lake, "Monsters in our Midst: The Sins of Dr. Frankenstein"
3/2/2018 - Carl Elliott, “Lonesome Whistle: Why medical researchers stay silent about
dangers to human subjects"
12/02/15 –Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Ph.D., "Why I am a Bioconservative"
02/26/15 – Cathleen Kaveny, JD, Ph.D., "Religion, Conscience, & the Public Square: Thirty Years After Cuomo's Notre Dame Speech"
10/07/13 – Laurie Zoloth, Ph.D., "Religion, Bioethics and the Poor: Attending to the Present on Bioethics"
11/07/12 –John Lantos, M.D., "The Cultivation of Gratitude"
10/9/09 – Laurence B. McCullough, Ph.D., “Taking Professional Conscience Seriously"
10/10/08 – Mark Cherry, Ph.D., "Kidney for Sale by Owner: Human Organs, Transplantation, and the Market"
11/10/06 –James F. Childress, Ph.D., "Just Care: Rationing in a Public Health Crisis"
09/09/05 –Laurie Zoloth, Ph.D., "Justice is the One Thing You Must Always Find: Access to Health Care in an Unfinished World"
09/10/04 –H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., "Birth of Bioethics Critically Reassessed"
09/19/03 – Jonathan Moreno, Ph.D., "Human Experimentation and Bioterrorism"
International Academy for Bioethical Inquiry (IABI) Summer Symposium
The Center for Health Care Ethics and IABI will host a bioethics symposium. Details and final dates are forthcoming.
Paper presentations from renowned bioethics scholars from around the world will explore the ontological and theological dimensions of bioethics.
IABI seeks to do two things:
- Bring religion and faith commitments back to serious bioethical inquiry, and
- Provide a venue for philosophically and theologically sophisticated scholarship to be brought to bear on contemporary bioethics.
Registration for the upcoming symposium will soon be available via SLU Marketplace.