Autonomy, Justice, Beneficence, and perhaps Nonmaleficence

For the first week of my fellowship I attended the Kennedy Institute of Ethics' Intensive Bioethics Course. Since I didn't actually register for it like the other attendees, I was pretty clueless to what I was getting into. I received the schedule of speakers about a month beforehand and was impressed to see that even with my limited background in bioethics, I had read books or articles from every ethicist on the list. What I realized quickly after starting was that this wasn't just a bioethics conference, but the bioethics conference. There were a little less that 150 people in attendance, and I would estimate that a third of them had flown in from other countries just for these lectures. I met people from South Africa, the UK, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, and even a tribal prince from Cameroon with over 600 siblings. The majority of individuals were physicians, RNs, chaplains, or philosophy PhDs, and then a few in specialities such as social work. To my knowledge I was the only genetic counselor.

The entire week was absolutely amazing. The format worked well to really stimulate the education. An ethicist would give a lecture on a particular topic and then we would break into small groups to discuss. These small groups were assigned, with about 15 people in each and lead by an ethicist. LeRoy Walters was the leader of my small group; he is the co-editor of the bioethics textbook that I used in my first bioethics course in undergrad! (He's a fantastically nice and intelligent individual.) My group was so diverse that all the perspectives were very intriguing, a wonderful mix of diverse professions (physicians, a lawyer, even a face transplant surgeon) and cultural backgrounds. It was fascinating to hear how medical systems work in other countries and the problems that were unique to a particular regions and how many problems were universal. It was funny, I was so interested in how everyone else was practicing medicine, yet most were extremely interested in genetic counseling. All week, during these small groups or at meals, I was frequently being questioned on "what a GC would do if..." or "how a GC would handle..." It seemed the ethical dilemmas that genetics often presents with were of great interest.

Another great thing about the conference was the food. Being that I still fall in the "financially challenged" realm of a student, any free food is fine with me, but the entire week breakfast and lunch were catered with the most amazing fare. They also hosted two social events, a cocktail party on Monday and a farewell dinner on Friday. Wade was able to attend these with me which was really fun. While I was one of the youngest attendees, we did become good friends with a group not too much older than ourselves. They were mostly physicians and PhDs from a variety of different states, as well as two great guys from Ireland (one of whom taught Wade and I some Irish euphemisms). We did some socializing with them which really added to the week. The last night we all went to Martin's Tavern on Wisconsin Ave (actually some of the bioethicists came drinking with us as well). Every president since Truman has visited Martin's Tavern, and we actually sat in the booth where JFK proposed to Jacqueline Onassis.

Overall the week was great. My knowledge, both intellectual and practical, of bioethics was greatly increased. I also met some amazing people whom I hope to keep in contact with.