Medical Ethicist to Speak on Rights of Conscience in Healthcare
John F. Brehany (right), executive director of the Catholic Medical Association, will
speak on the necessity of protecting the rights of conscience, particularly in the
health professions, on Wednesday, Feb. 6, at 7 p.m. in the Upstairs Haggar Dining
Room. Brehany's talk is sponsored by Student Programming at UD (SPUD).
"I thought that Brehany could offer a unique perspective as an ethicist who has had close contact with healthcare professionals in a hospital setting," said Steven McDowell, SPUD academics coordinator and senior politics major. "Brehany's son Patrick, a senior here at UD, actually approached me with the idea of hosting the lecture."
Brehany received his doctorate in health care ethics from St. Louis University; he has also earned graduate degrees in philosophy and theology. Prior to serving at the Catholic Medical Association, Brehany was the executive director of mission services and ethics at Mercy Medical Center in Sioux City, Iowa.
Upcoming spring SPUD academic events include the Ruskin Rhetoric Competition, in which students give speeches on a set topic to a panel of UD faculty judges, and the Bradford Debate, an annual debate between a UD professor and a visiting scholar regarding a topic of current interest.