Issues in the Provision of Sophisticated Medical Technologies

Featured Speaker: Daniel Callies, Ph.D.

 This presentation will explore ethical issues that drive decision-making in determining and implementing medical intervention. For example, should we force ventilatory support on a patient who does not want it even if it is necessary to save the patient’s life? What considerations should be taken into account when distributing scarce medical technologies such as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation? Should patients be given the choice of receiving experimental drugs or procedures when tested, reliable and approved options have failed? What are the potential applications, as well as social and ethical issues, that arise from gene-driven research? Could the deceptive use of placebo be justified in clinical practice on the grounds of beneficence? The presentation will explore these and other questions.

Presenter Biography

Daniel Callies is the Ethics Program Manager and Clinical Ethicist for the UC San Diego Health System. His research falls under the broad umbrella of practical ethics, with a current focus on issues related to medical decision-making capacity, just health-care resource allocation and physician obligations with respect to inappropriate medical treatment. He earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy and Ethics from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany.

Coordinator: Linda Gardner