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Center Director's Message
As the Center continues to grow, we often get questions from people newly interested in the intriguing mix of health, ethics, arts, and humanities in our title. Something along the lines of: Yes, but what exactly do you do?
One of my favorite answers ever came by way of a holiday message just yesterday from a former student. About ten years ago, I worked with her and several other undergraduates on a project combining science and theatre, which culminated in a presentation at an Ethics Explored discussion. We have kept in touch as she decided to pursue a career in medicine. She is now finished with her training as a surgeon—a surgeon who maintains her interest in the arts.
This is exactly what we do. We work with students—and all learners!—who want to investigate, develop, and discuss the connections they see between healthcare experiences and all other experiences of being human. (See below for more about our award for medical student writing; stay tuned for more about a new undergraduate major in Fall 2025.) We support the idea that medical professionals need and want to draw on the knowledge generated in the arts and humanities as well as in scientific fields. We encourage the search for meaning and possibility in those places where traditional disciplines overlap.
You might already have experienced our interdisciplinary approach by attending our events or working with our faculty and staff. Perhaps you read and discuss with us at Literature and Healthcare each month; our 2025 booklist is below! Maybe you’ve attended an Ethics Explored discussion; our spring line-up includes ethics in times of catastrophe, what a clinical ethicist does, grief among physicians, and the first 100 days of healthcare in the new administration. You might have submitted your artwork or writing to Rubor or you just look forward to the annual issue. You might have attended “Healthcare Stories” at Kingsbury Hall. Please read on to learn more!
Even as we move into the winter holiday season, we are excited about all our plans for the new year and we hope you will join us.
-Gretchen Case
Check back often so you don't miss out on our collaborative events!
FACULTY in the NEWS
Peggy Battin's new book, Sex and the Planet: What Opt-In Reproduction Could Do for the Globe, was published by MIT Press in May 2024.
What if human reproduction were always elective? A prominent bioethicist speculates about the possibilities—and the likely consequences.
A new book by Leslie P. Francis and John G. Francis, 'States of Health: The Ethics and Consequences of Policy Variation in a Federal System,' was published by Oxford University Press in May 2024.
“This book engages with the ethics and consequences of policy variation in a federal system. The book discusses the extraordinary range of policies about health and health care in the US, and the truly shocking differences in health outcomes that are associated with these policy differences. We argue that there are advantages to federalism, including possibilities for experimentation and for avoiding the worst case of national bans on ethically controversial care, but that these advantages will only be realized if people can readily move outside of their home states and if national minimums are achieved.”
Gretchen Case's guest post on "Good Notes," a blog that features expert perspectives from U of U leaders and collaborators, discusses the intersection of the arts, humanities, and healthcare and the work we do at the Center.
Brent Kious appears in an episode of "A State of Mind: Confronting Our Mental Health Crisis in Wyoming." A series created by PBS Wyoming to investigate answers to Wyoming's mental health crisis, this documentary series follows patient journeys through a combination of expert interviews and observations from regular people.
Madison Kilbride's research article, titled “Test-Takers’ Perspectives on Consumer Genetic Testing for Hereditary Cancer Risk,” was published in Frontiers in Genetics in July 2024.
Susan Sample’s recently published poems include: "I Dream of a Needle," "Articulate, Please," and "When the Screen Retracts." They will appear later this year in Ars Medica, Canada's first medical humanities journal. Each presents a different perspective—an educator, writer, and daughter—on end-of-life issues.
Leslie Francis’ post on “Bill of Health,” a blog that examines the intersection of health, law, biotechnology, and bioethics highlights Louisiana's new law classifying misoprostol and mifepristone as illegal without a prescription for non-abortion uses, a move that continues to fuel legal debates despite the Supreme Court's recent rejection of a challenge to the FDA's approval of these drugs.
Leslie and John Francis' article, titled "How, and When, Federalism Is Good for Public Health," was published in Harvard Public Health in September 2024.
Susan Sample's lyrical essay, titled "Afterlife," was published in Literature and Medicine in September 2024.
James Tabery and Arthur Caplan's article, titled "Donald Trump Wants to Make Eugenics Great Again. Let's Not," was published in Scientific American in October 2024.
Gretchen Case performed a new original work, “Rules for Safety,” at the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities in September as part of a panel on clinical ethicist experiences. She also had a presentation, “Layers of Medicine,” and a poster, “From spectator to spectActor: Teaching medical providers to interrupt bias through Forum Theatre,” co-authored with Center affiliates Quang-Tuyen Nguyen, Karly Pippitt, and Candace Chow, at the annual meeting of the Association of American Medical Colleges in November