We have been delighted lately to have more people find us at CHEETAH and to keep hearing from all of you who’ve been with us for a while. Even if you think you know us, you might be surprised by how much we’ve got going on at the Center.
Did you know we are hiring another clinical ethicist as the demand for our clinical ethics consultation program grows? We’ve also been able to send Sasha Trinkaus and Shannon Gadd to trainings that expand expertise at the U in clinical ethics and arts-based healthcare education.
Did you know that we are again co-producing the live storytelling event Healthcare Stories on February 11, 2027, at Kingsbury Hall, with the Resiliency Center and UtahPresents? This year’s theme is “GUTS!” and the call for stories is open now through September 25.
Did you know that on March 10-13, 2027, we are hosting the annual meeting of the Health Humanities Consortium, for the first time in the Mountain West? The call for papers will go out mid-September, and we hope to have many submissions from local folks for this nationally known conference exploring the intersections of the arts and humanities with healthcare and health sciences education.
Did you know that Mark Matheson will lead his final Literature & Healthcare session in December? Please join us for a special in-person discussion on December 9, 2026, from 6:00 to 7:30 PM in the Sterling Sill Center conference room to celebrate Dr. Matheson’s extraordinary gift of leading us through literature. Please RSVP to ethicshum@hsc.utah.edu by November 18, 2026.
If you are reading this newsletter for the first time, make sure to take note of our ongoing series: Ethics Explored, where we discuss challenging issues in medical ethics, and the Literature & Healthcare discussion group, which meets each month to discuss a book that reflects on health and medicine. We also host nationally known speakers: Patrick Smith for this year’s Cowan-Mayden Lecture and Tyler Tate for the David Green Memorial Lecture. We collaborate with partners across campus like our sustained work with the Center for Law and Biomedical Sciences (LABS) and to hold special events that wouldn’t be possible without all our friends and supporters (like Kate Bowler in 2025).
Join us at an event, reach out to our faculty, suggest an idea, sponsor an initiative. Welcome!
Save the Date: 2027 Health Humanities Consortium Conference
CHEETAH will be hosting the Health Humanities Consortium Conference for the first time in the Mountain West. Please save the date: March 10 to March 13, 2027, and stay tuned for more updates. Feel free to reach out with any questions or for additional information!
CALL FOR STORY PITCHES
Healthcare Stories | Kingsbury Hall | February 11, 2027 @ 7:00 pm
On Feb. 11, 2027, UtahPresents, the Resiliency Center, and the Center for Health Ethics, Arts, and Humanities will present an evening of storytelling with the ninth installment of Healthcare Stories at Kingsbury Hall. This year’s theme is “Guts!”
Guts: where the action happens. We spill our guts, have a gut feeling, laugh our guts out, and tell ourselves to gut up. Our guts hold a crucial biome, connect directly to our brains, nourish us, and handle the messy business of keeping us alive. We all have a relationship with our guts, both real and symbolic, at the center of who we are. This year, we invite stories full of humor, bravery, complication, and investigation into the depths of what it means to be human. We want to hear how your guts work.
We welcome story pitches from across the healthcare community, including clinicians, researchers, patients, family members, staff, faculty, and students.
Story pitch submissions are due by Friday, September 25, 2026, at midnight.
The Human Side of Medicine: Why Ethics, Arts, and Humanities Matter in Medical Education
We are pleased to feature course directors Gretchen Case, PhD, MA, and Sarah Cipriano, MD, and their work with CHEETAH. This article highlights their "Art in Medicine" course, where medical students use creative activities—like redesigning white coats and observing art in museums—to improve their reflection, observation, and empathy skills. Find out how CHEETAH promotes health humanities and emphasizes that medicine is fundamentally about humans caring for one another.
Cowan-Mayden Lectureship
Dr. Smith is an Associate Research Professor of Theological Ethics and Bioethics at Duke Divinity School and an Associate Professor in Population Health Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine. He is a Senior Fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics and a Faculty Associate with Duke’s Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine. His work covers moral philosophy, bioethics, religious social ethics, health inequities, and end-of-life care.
More details coming soon!
The lectureship was endowed and named in honor of Max and Sara Cowan, whose many interests included medical ethics and the humanistic practice of medicine. The Center partners with the Priscilla M. Mayden Lectures to bring an expert speaker who addresses issues that are of wide-ranging importance to healthcare and health education.
David Green Memorial Lectureship in Pediatrics
Dr. Tate is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine and a core faculty member at the Laurie J. Girand Center for Biomedical Ethics. His research focuses on bioethics, healthcare communication, and disability-centered palliative care. He previously served as Associate Director at the OHSU Center for Ethics in Health Care and received the 2024 Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Early-Career Physician Award. Dr. Tate is also a Greenwall Foundation faculty scholar, working to conceptualize suffering and develop an ethical framework for clinical care.
Dr. Tate will give Pediatric Grand Rounds on January 14, 2027, at 8:00 AM, with more details to come.
Pediatric Grand Rounds: The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Pediatric Medicine
Ethics Explored: To Suffer What We Can't Evade: What is Medicine’s Role in Responding to Suffering?
The lectureship was endowed and named in memory of David Green, a pediatric ethicist and member of the Division of Medical Ethics and Humanities, as the Center was formerly known. The multiple events of this annual lectureship are co-sponsored by the Department of Pediatrics and the Primary Children’s Hospital Medical Executive Committee.
Dr. Green's memory lives on through this lectureship and other Center events as we continue the important work to which he was so faithfully dedicated.
Clinical Ethics Consultation Service
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Identify and analyze the value uncertainties or conflicts that underlie ethical issues/questions
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Provide a framework for addressing complex issues in patient care
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Facilitate resolution of conflicts with attention to the interests, rights, and responsibilities of all involved
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Provide and document recommendations on the most ethically appropriate course(s) of action
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Address moral distress
Anyone can call an Ethics Consult: click here for contact information
We are expanding and hiring another clinical ethicist: click here to apply
Award for Written Scholarship in Medical Ethics
The Center for Health Ethics, Arts, and Humanities is pleased to sponsor the Award for Written Scholarship in Medical Ethics. The Award of $1,500 is given annually to a student in the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine at the University of Utah on the basis of a written manuscript addressing an ethical issue in medical care or medical research. The aim of the award is to acknowledge students with clear potential to develop a scholarly career in medical ethics. The Award is supported by a generous donation to the Center by a faculty member.
2026 Award Recipient
Kamryn Welling, MD Candidate 2028, was selected as this year’s Award for Written Scholarship in Medical Ethics winner for her manuscript “I’d rather not.” She was recognized at the SFESOM Dean’s Dinner on May 12, 2026, and in the 2026 Commencement program.
FACULTY NEWS
Rubor, a medical humanities journal, is an instrument of humanism and a creative forum for the humanities at the U of U-School of Medicine. On behalf of readers and contributors in Salt Lake City, the greater Utah community, and beyond, it seeks to provide a sense of community, belongingness, and expression of humanity in the context of health and medicine.
Click here to see the latest issue
The inaugural edition of Voices from the Faculty and Staff was published in 2020 with content that addresses aspects of medical practice, education, and training and how these impact our lives and relationships. This can include: emotional situations, tensions, and situations that are memorable for being inspirational as well as troubling.
Click here to see the latest issue
