Carlos Perez-Mesa, MD Lectureship in Medical Humanities

April 26th, 2007, 7:00pm, Old Alumni Center 1105 Carrie Francke Drive.

Lecture presented by Robert L. Fine, MD, FACP
Director, Office of Clinical Ethics, Baylor Health Care System

"Plato suggested that ethics belongs to the body polis or political body of any society. The Perez-Mesa lecture, “Medical Futility: Philosophy and Politics” will further examine the politics surrounding the development and maintenance of the Texas Advance Directives Act in both the pre- and post-Schiavo worlds. This lecture will examine the development of the Texas Advance Directives act, including the extra-judicial dispute resolution process, review some of the Texas cases that have drawn national attention, explore utilization of the law based upon data from several major hospitals across the state, and finally reflect upon medical practice within a bio-psycho-social framework informed by communitarian values and the natural trajectory of life." Robert L. Fine, MD, FACP

Also presented by Dr. Fine-

Medicine Grand Rounds, 12:00pm, Acuff Auditorium, University of Missouri School of Medicine April 26th, 2007

“Futility of futilities, all is futile.” So opens the text of one of the ancient world’s greatest wisdom texts. Although the writer of Ecclesiastes was exploring futility in its broadest possible sense, the concept has particular relevance within medicine.

Dr. Edmund Pellegrino has wisely noted, “The clinical concept futility embodies cannot be eradicated from clinical medicine as long as patients are mortal.” I will deliver two complimentary lectures exploring the concept of medical futility. The medical grand rounds lecture, “Medical Futility: Philosophy and Clinical Practice” will use a case based approach to explore the general concept of medical futility using multiple cases taken from the ethics consultation experience at Baylor University Medical Center. The intent of this lecture is to help clinicians in particular recognize medical futility at the clinical level, exploring various possible definitions of the concept as well as methods for facing the problem of futility at the bedside. This lecture will briefly review the extra-judicial due process mechanism available to the physicians and families under Texas law for resolving disagreements about appropriate treatment for terminally ill patients." Robert L. Fine, MD, FACP