FEATURE
John Conley Division of Medical Ethics & Humanities Awarded $112K Donation!
(These photos were taken before the COVID-19 pandemic had been declared. All John
Conley Division of Medical Ethics activities have been digitally optimized and moved
to a Zoom format.)
In exciting news, the John Conley Division of Medical Ethics & Humanities was recently awarded a generous $112k donation from the John Conley Foundation for
Ethics and Philosophy in Medicine, to support its dynamic programming. This award
has been bestowed upon the Division since 1994 on an annual basis—bringing in an excess
of $1M, to-date. These incredible awards have been consistently secured by Kathleen Powderly, Ph.D., CNM, Director of the John Conley Division of Medical Ethics and Humanities.
To understand how pivotal these awards are to the programming within the John Conley
Division of Medical Ethics, here is a glimpse of what our scholars were able to accomplish
in a year unlike all others.
Pushing through the pandemic--When COVID first brought the world to a screeching halt, students were removed from
clinical rotations and didactic education was optimized for remote learning. While
the clinical component of their programs paused for the first quarter of 2020, students
didn't waste a moment to identify how they can be of service during these challenging
times. Led by two of our Conley Scholars, Jack Hessburg, MD/PhD candidate, and Anjali Jaiman, MD candidate, students collectively worked to develop scripts and called family members of patients
who were not allowed in the hospital to see their loved ones because of infection
control. They updated families, coordinated communication and provided bereavement
counseling. They also developed educational materials on COVID for the community,
and connected needy patients and families with food banks and other resources. Yekaterina Merkulova, M.D., Ph.D., now a first year resident at Beth Israel in Boston, spent weeks working in the
morgue helping to connect families with their deceased loved ones, and Robert Colbourn, MD/PhD Candidate, worked in the pathology lab performing COVID testing on behalf of the Downstate
community.
On the front lines of Social Justice--Amid national tensions around racial injustice and police brutality following the
heinous killing of George Floyd, a group of impassioned students issued a Call for
Action from Downstate to intentionally address institutional racism. The Conley Division
was proud to support their call for increased community engagement on the matter of
social justice, changes to our medical curriculum to address implicit bias in education,
and continued dialogue around race and culture to improve our campus. In addition,
our Conley Scholars participated in the ongoing effort, by joining students from across
our campus as they rallied together to launch a series of social justice events from
critical campus dialogues via virtual town halls, to peaceful demonstrations at events
like the White Coats for Black Lives “Die-In” among other things. The event brought together more than 300 students, residents,
and fellows from the Downstate community, who all banded together—taking the knee
or lying flat on the street—in acknowledgement and in honor of the many lives lost
at the hands of police violence.
The Ethics Pathway--Our eight incredible Conley Scholars also managed the Ethics Pathway, a program that
enriches the education of a cohort of first-year medical students in the areas of
ethics and professionalism. The pathway was designed to provide students with the
opportunity to gain a substantive foundation in ethics beyond what is offered in the
current formal curriculum. Through the pathway, Conley scholars conducted a series
of lectures and small group discussions, a peer-mentored project, and participation
in guest lectures by the Visiting Professors of the Division.
Community Partnerships--Thanks to the efforts of Fenizia Maffucci, M.D., a collaborative relationship between Downstate and the Brooklyn Museum has been
established and has continued to develop throughout the pandemic. Two successful
sessions with students in the School of Graduate Studies were conducted via zoom and
workshops using art as a lens to discuss health disparities and social justice is
now being explored.
(These photos were taken before the COVID-19 pandemic had been declared. All John
Conley Division of Medical Ethics activities have been digitally optimized and moved
to a Zoom format.)
Our Conley scholars also played an integral role in supporting the content featured
on the John Conley Division of Medical Ethics & Humanities Podcast on iTunes—enabling their progressive curriculum and programming to reach far beyond the Downstate
community.
Dr. Powderly has taken the lead on this award since its inception. She is vice chair
of the Ethics Committee at UHB/KCHC and has served as a vice chair of the Ethics Council
of NYC Health+Hospitals. Dr. Powderly is also a member of Downstate’s Institutional
Review Board, as well as a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine and the Hastings
Center. She formerly served on the Ethics Committee of the SUNY University Faculty
Senate and the Clinical Ethics Consultation Affairs standing committee of the American
Society of Bioethics and Humanities, and recently served on the Board of Directors
of the Association of Bioethics Program Directors
(These photos were taken before the COVID-19 pandemic had been declared. All John
Conley Division of Medical Ethics activities have been digitally optimized and moved
to a Zoom format.)
CONGRATULATIONS to the John Conley Division of Medical Ethics & Humanities for this
deserving award. Many thanks to our scholars who continue to show and prove why this
programming is so invaluable, and a very special THANK YOU to Dr. Powderly for her
leadership!
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