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Why “Provider” is a Four-letter Word

May 13, 2022 • Posted in Blog

D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director

Family and friends of Dr. Robert D. Orr recently gathered in Vermont to mark his passing. Due to previous COVID restrictions, this celebration of his life took place almost a year after his passing. Dr. Orr, a nationally-recognized physician and medical ethicist, was a mentor to many, many physicians and medical students, including this writer. He is sorely missed.

It is fair to say that Dr. Orr despised the term “provider” as an appellation of a physician. He once surprised a colleague of mine who had submitted a paper to him. He told my colleague that ...read more

A Tale of Two Data Scientists

March 25, 2021 • Posted in Blog

 

Neil Ferguson, Ph.D. Infamous Graph Youyang Gu

 

D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director

It was a long year ago (March 2020) that a dire prediction was issued by a group at Imperial College London (UK) regarding the possible effects of the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. The model predicted more than 500,000 UK deaths, and >2.2 million deaths in the U.S. by summer if no action were taken. One of the data scientists issuing that proclamation was Neil Ferguson, Ph.D. He and his group advised the government that “in the UK and US context, suppression will minimally require a combination of social distancing of the entire ...read more

Our Summer Non-Vacation

September 23, 2019 • Posted in Blog

D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director

“What I did on my summer vacation” is an assignment many of us have had to complete in the late Augusts or early Septembers of our lives, when we returned to school after the summer break. Given that Summer 2019 has just ended (although the high temperatures have yet to abate), an update on our activities is in order:

21 June 2019 — First Day of Summer

We hosted “Chicago Meets New York: Dinner and a Movie” at the Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity’s 26th international bioethics conference on the campus of Trinity International University outside ...read more

Taking stock: Where are we now?

January 30, 2016 • Posted in Blog

D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A.

Taking stock of where one is at the beginning of a new project or a new year is a good idea. Where we are in the entire realm of bioethics is beyond the scope of one blog post, but what follows are some landmarks discernible in January 2016…

Physician-Assisted Suicide

On Sunday, 24 January, John Jay Hooker, Tennessee lawyer, politician, and activist, died. Mr. Hooker had most recently championed “death with dignity” — physician-assisted suicide — in a proposed bill and in the courts. By the time of his death, neither the legislature nor the courts had provided ...read more

Gene-editing summit supports some research in human embryos — Nature News

December 4, 2015 • Posted in Atlas

By Sara Reardon

3 December 2015

Read here.

CRISPR: What is it? Who decides what we do with it?

November 30, 2015 • Posted in Blog

D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A.

What is it?

Imagine a word processor for genes, where you could search for a defective gene, find the mutation, cut it out, and replace it with the proper DNA sequence. The cutting and replacing part of the process is what CRISPR and its associated (Cas) systems do. They are enzymes used to clip out particular sections of DNA in a cell’s nucleus, and replace the removed sections with other DNA segments, presumably replacing “defective” DNA with “good” DNA.

Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) were first described in 2012, and the technique was used in human ...read more

Slip Slidin’ Away

July 31, 2015 • Posted in Blog

D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A.

I doubt that Paul Simon had Physician-Assisted Suicide (P-AS) in mind when he penned the words to “Slip Slidin’ Away,” but they seem strangely apropos. The terms in the debate are the first to slip, slide away: the Hemlock Society became Compassion and Choices. The latter, which is involved in the Tennessee debate, is hopeful that physician-assisted suicide will become “aid-in-dying”; that is, before it slips into voluntary euthanasia, and then slides away into involuntary euthanasia.

What would happen if physician-assisted suicide (P-AS) were legal?

The role of physicians would be drastically altered. Guaranteeing ...read more

Knowing How to Treat Something Requires Knowing What It Is

December 29, 2014 • Posted in Blog

D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A.

Here’s a riddle for you: what do you do with the above pictured item? Do you melt it, re-form it, and use it for jewelry? Do you add it to a paint base and cover your walls? Or do you include it in a rice dish and serve it to your family?

Truthfully, you do none of the above. The gold-colored powder pictured above is not real gold; it would not make good jewelry. It is not pigment to add to your wall paint. It is certainly not saffron or curry powder to add to a rice ...read more

Documentary — When Assisted Death is Legal: Episode II

March 4, 2013 • Posted in Atlas

BBC World Service:  first broadcast 20 February 2013

Liz Carr visits The Netherlands, and the American states of Washington and Oregon in the second episode of the two-part radio documentary on euthanasia and assisted suicide.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p014q86x

Documentary — When Assisted Death Is Legal: Episode I

March 3, 2013 • Posted in Atlas

BBC World Service:  first broadcast 19 February 2013

Liz Carr visits Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Belgium in this first episode of the two-part radio documentary on euthanasia and assisted suicide.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p014dkr1