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Educational Opportunities

Educating healthcare professionals, healthcare students, students from non-healthcare disciplines interested in exploring the ethical dimensions of healthcare, and members of the community at large is a core part of the Center for Healthcare Ethics' mission. Such education serves not only to raise awareness of crucial ethical issues and considerations associated with healthcare practices, healthcare delivery systems, and broader societal dynamics that can shape the values linked to how health, illness and patient care are understood, but more importantly, it helps promote and enable morally appropriate and sensitive patient care.

The center offers a variety of courses, conference, lectures and other sessions geared for creating an educated community and citizenry. Below is a list of educational programs open to participants as indicated.

Overview of Ethics Noon Conference

Since 1997, the Center for Healthcare Ethics has proudly presented the Ethics Noon Conference, a monthly event open to all who work within, are affiliated with or receive care at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The primary aim of these conferences is to raise the level of awareness and degree of understanding of fundamental as well as emerging issues and concerns in healthcare ethics. Covering a broad range of ethical considerations associated with healthcare practices, healthcare delivery, and the healthcare system, these conferences always include time for audience participation and interaction.

Matching the range of ethical considerations and diversity of ethical perspectives that may fall under the rubric of healthcare ethics, speakers for Ethics Noon Conference come from a variety of backgrounds, disciplines, and practice setting - over the years, they have been not only physicians and nurses, philosophers and other academics from across the United States, but also authors, filmmakers, and poets whose insights also help expand our understanding of ethics as pertinent to healthcare.

Ethics Noon Conferences (ENCs) are held on the third Wednesday of each month during the academic year, i.e., September-June, starting at noon and ending at 1:00 p.m. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, ENCs shifted from in-person to virtual presentations, which continues. Since November 2007, ENCs have been video recorded to allow for later viewing by members of the Cedars-Sinai community; DVDs of past ENCs are housed in Cedars-Sinai’s Medical Library as part of the Library’s extensive Healthcare Ethics collection.

This monthly conference is open to all who work within, are affiliated with or receive care at Cedars-Sinai. The primary aim for these conferences is to raise awareness and understanding of emerging issues and concerns surrounding healthcare ethics.

Past Presenters at Ethics Noon Conference

  • Jan. 20, 2022: Farr Curlin, MD, Duke University – "Mere Healers: What Medical Training Is For & Why It Matters"
  • Feb. 10, 2022: Catherine Belling, PhD, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine – "Haunted Doctors: Clinical Trauma, Emotion and the Weird"
  • Mar. 17, 2022: Yolonda Y. Wilson, PhD, Saint Louis University – "Lessons of Vulnerability in COVID Times"
  • Apr. 21, 2022: Lydia S. Dugdale, MD, MA, Columbia Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeon – "The Art of Dying Well"
  • May 19, 2022: Brian A. Nosek, PhD, University of Virginia – "Improving Rigor and Reproducibility of Research"
  • June 16, 2022: Keith Wailoo, PhD, Princeton University – "The Politics of Pain: Opioids, Race, and Relief in America"
  • Sept. 22, 2022: Jason A Wasserman, PhD, Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine – "Futility and Conscience: The Ethics of Interventions with Profoundly Neurologically Impaired Patients"
  • Oct. 20, 2022: Daniel E. Dawes, JD, Morehouse School of Medicine – "Social Determinants of Health"
  • Nov. 17, 2022: Emily Largent, JD, PhD, RN, University of Pennsylvania - "That would be dreadful! Sharing You Alzheimer’s Disease Risk with Others"
  • Dec. 15, 2022: Tarris Rosell, DMin, PhD, Center for Practical Bioethics, Kansas City – “The Tragic Story of Jane”
  • Jan. 20, 2021: Rita Charon, MD, PhD, Columbia Vegelos College of Physicians & Surgeons – “How We Create the Clinical Real: A Narrative Medicine Fugue”
  • Feb. 10, 2021: Heidi Y. Lawrence, PhD, George Mason University – “Vaccines: Understanding and Responding to Public Concerns”
  • Mar. 17, 2021: Timothy W. Kirk, PhD, City University of New York, York College – “Ethics, Biopsychosocialspiritual Care, and the COVID-19 Pandemic”
  • Apr. 21, 2021: Tessa Clelouche, MD, Haifa University – “Hitler and Hippocrates: Teaching Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany”
  • May 19, 2021: Patrick M. Markey, PhD, Villanova University – "The Cost of Responsibility: An Example of What Happens When a Researcher Questions Another’s Data"
  • June 16, 2021: Howard Markel, MD, PhD, University of Michigan – "The Secret of Life: Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, Francis Crick and the Discovery of DNA’s Double Helix"
  • Sept. 22, 2021: Saleem Razack, MD, McGill University – "Constructing Professionalism in Unprecedented Times"
  • Oct. 20, 2021: Scott YH Kim, MD, NIH Clinical Center – "Treatment Refusal, Personality Disorders, and Medical Decision-Making"
  • Nov. 17, 2021: Emily Largent, JD, PhD, RN, University of Pennsylvania – "That would be dreadful! Sharing You Alzheimer’s Disease Risk with Others"
  • Dec. 15, 2021: Jeffrey T. Berger, MD, and Dana Ribeiro Miller, MDiv, MSW NYU Long Island School of Medicine – "Racism: Academic Medicine and the Fallacy of Cultural Competence"
  • Jan. 15, 2020: Abraham M. Nussbaum, MD, Denver Health—"Tinkering in Today’s Healthcare Factories: Renewing Healthcare Through Relationships"
  • Feb. 19, 2020: Marsha D. Fowler, PhD, MDiv, MS, RN, FAAN, Azusa Pacific University—"The First Century of Nursing Ethics 1088’s – 1965"
  • Sept. 16, 2020: Tod Chambers, PhD, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine – "The Humanities as Medical Equipment"
  • Oct. 21, 2020: Matthew R. Rosengart, MD, MPH, University of Pittsburgh – "Every nook and cranny, a place of safety"
  • Nov. 18, 2020: Alta Charo, JD, University of Wisconsin– "Clinical Research and Care Considerations for Genome Editing"
  • Dec. 16, 2020: John Williams, III, MD, Cedars-Sinai – "Racism in Medicine: Perspectives of an African American Physician"
  • Jan. 16, 2019: Anthony Back, MD, University of Washington—"What Communication Means to Being a Good Physician"
  • Feb. 20, 2019: D. Micah Hester, PhD, University of Arkansas—"(Non-)Sense and Sensibilities: What Might We Mean by the Patient’s ‘Best Interest'?"
  • Mar. 20, 2019: Jennifer H. Molinsky, PhD, Harvard University—"Topic: Housing for the elderly as relevant to health issues"
  • Apr. 17, 2019: David C. Blake, PhD, JD, Healthcare Ethics & Compliance Consultant—"Topic: Uncertainty in clinical medicine and judgments"
  • May 15, 2019: Kimberly A. Griffin, PhD, University of Maryland—"Topic: Mentoring"
  • June 19, 2019: Nancy J. Tomes, PhD, Stoney Brook University—"Nuisance or Necessity? Historical Perspectives on the 'Informed Patient'"
  • Sept. 18, 2019: Tia Powell, MD, Albert Einstein College of Medicine – “Dementia Reimagined: Ethics and Health Policy”
  • Oct. 16, 2019: Clarence H. Braddock, III, MD, MPH, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA – "The Ethics of 'Keeping Up'"
  • Nov. 20, 2019: Despina Kakoudaki, PhD, American University, Washington DC – "Genetics Technology and the Potential for Re-Shaping the Meaning of Medical 'Caring' (for better or worse)"
  • Dec. 18, 2019: I. Glenn Cohen, JD, Harvard Law School
  • Jan. 17, 2018: Paul J. Ford, PhD, The Cleveland Clinic — "Brain Illnesses and Complicated Ethical Choices"
  • Feb. 21, 2018: Brian Mustanski, PhD, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine — "Ethical Issues in Sexual Health Research with Adolescents"
  • Mar. 21, 2018: Emily Rapp Black, Author & Lucy Kalanithi, MD, Stanford University School of Medicine — "A Dialogue About Loss: When Breath Becomes Air"
  • Apr. 25, 2018: Rabbi Avraham Steinberg MD, Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School — "Combining Medicine and Jewish Law: A Personal Experience"
  • May 16, 2018: Jacalyn Duffin, MD, PhD, Queen’s University Faculty of Health Sciences — "Medical Miracles: Hematologist in the Vatican Archives"
  • Sept. 12, 2018: Deepak Sarma, PhD, Case Western Reserve University — "The Karma and Dharma of Hindu Bioethics"
  • Oct. 3, 2018: Christine Porath, PhD, Georgetown University — "Mastering Civility"
  • Oct. 17, 2018: Gretchen A. Case, PhD, University of Utah School of Medicine —"Topic: The art of health and healing"
  • Nov. 15, 2018: Mildred Cho, PhD, Stanford University—"What’s in a Name? Why Metaphors Matter for Genomics"
  • Dec. 19, 2018: Mark G. Kuczewski, PhD, Loyola University—"Addressing Two Generations of Clinical Ethics Issues Involving Undocumented Patients"

Ethics Forum

This bimonthly session is open to all Cedars-Sinai staff and is held on the last Wednesday of the odd months from noon-1 p.m. The forum serves as an occasion for critical exploration of the breadth of ethical issues and dynamics associated with the daily practices of patient care. If you would like more information, please contact the center.


Ethics Seminar

This monthly session is open to all Cedars-Sinai staff and is an occasion for in-depth exploration of critical questions associated with healthcare ethics in an intimate, seminar-style classroom setting. Its focus is to foster critical reflection on the nature and meaning of core values and commitments entailed in healthcare practices.


ICU Ethics Roundtables

This biweekly, multidisciplinary forum, which is primarily geared for house staff and fellows rotating through any of Cedars-Sinai's ICUs, addresses ethical and moral issues and concerns, critical skill sets, communication strategies, and challenging situations that emerge in the ICU. The content of each session reflects real-time experiences and issues that arise in caring for patients, families and our colleagues. The roundtable provides a space to raise questions, debrief from stressful events and learn from and with colleagues.


SICU Residents Clinical Ethics Conference

This bimonthly meeting is part of an educational series for house staff and fellows during their Surgical Intensive Care Unit rotation. The meeting is limited to the members mentioned above.


Ethics Resources & Library Holdings

Each year, the Center for Healthcare Ethics donates newly published and critically acclaimed books to the Medical Library. Their focus is on healthcare/professional ethics. A complete listing of these books may be found by going to the Medical Library's catalogue page and using "ethics" as a keyword and selecting "Searching Everything."

The Center for Healthcare Ethics also sponsors the Healthcare Ethics Journal Collection. This on-line collection of premier healthcare ethics and humanities journals allows anyone with access to the Medical Library website to access current and past issues of the following 12 journals.

  • American Journal of Bioethics 
  • Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 
  • Hasting Center Report 
  • HEC Report 
  • Journal of Clinical Ethics 
  • Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics 
  • Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 
  • Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 
  • Literature and Medicine 
  • Medicine, Healthcare, and Philosophy 
  • Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 
  • Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 

Have Questions or Need Help?

Call us or send a message to the Healthcare Ethics team. You can also have us call you back at your convenience.

Available 7 days a week, 6 am - 9 pm PT

(1-800-233-2771)

Available Monday through Friday, 8 am - 5 pm PT