The Department of Bioethics hosts Ethics Grand Rounds four times per year. Ethics Grand Rounds is designed to provide a venue to learn about and discuss important issues in bioethics. The sessions for the 2023 – 2024 academic year are listed below. Sessions run from noon-1pm and are live-streamed to the public via NIH Videocast.
April 2, 2025
The Ethics of Research with Terminally Ill Patients
Saskia Hendriks, MD, PhD, Acting Chief, Bioethics Consultation Service, CC; Neuroethics Program, Office of the Director, NINDS
Yael Schenker, MD, MAS, FAAHPM, Professor of Medicine; Director, Palliative Research Center (PaRC); Associate Chief of Research, Section of Palliative Care and Medical Ethics, University of Pittsburgh
Charles Weijer, BMdSc, MD, PhD, Professor, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Philosophy, Western University, Ontario Canada
November 20, 2024
The Ethics of Randomized Policy Experiments
Dean Karlan, PhD, Frederic Esser Nemmers Professor of Economics and Finance, Northwestern University; and Chief Economist, USAID
Douglas MacKay, PhD, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Faculty Center For Bioethics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
April 3, 2024
How Can We Respect the Dead?
Presenter: Benjamin E. Berkman, JD, MPH, Department of Bioethics, Clinical Center and NHGRI
Discussant: Neal Dickert, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine
February 7, 2024
Should 'Supported' Decision-Making Be Used in Research
Presenter: David S. Wendler, MA, PhD, Senior Investigator, Department of Bioethics, Clinical Center
Discussant: Nina A. Kohn, David M. Levy Professor of Law, Syracuse University College of Law, Distinguished Scholar in Elder Law, Solomon Center for Health Law & Politics, Yale Law School
December 6, 2023
The Ethics of Non-medical Motivations for Seeking Care
Presenter: David Wendler, PhD, Senior Investigator, Department of Bioethics, Clinical Center
Discussant: William A. Gahl, MD, PhD, Senior Investigator, Medical Genetics Branch, Human Biochemical Genetics Section, National Human Genome Research Institute
October 4, 2023
Ethics of NIH researchers using Large Language Models
Presenter: Nick Asendorf, PhD, Scientific Information Officer, NHLBI
Discussant: David Magnus, PhD, Thomas A. Raffin Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Ethics; Director, Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics
Previous Topics
April 5, 2023
Is it Ethical to Appeal to Research Participants' Altruism?
Presenter: Beth Kozel MD, PhD, Lasker Clinical Research Scholar, NHLBI.
Discussant: Alex Voorhoeve PhD; Head, Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics.
February 1, 2023
How to Make Vaccines: Should the Information be Publicly Available?
Presenter: Maria Elena Bottazzi PhD, Co-Director, Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development.
Discussant: Ezekiel Emanuel MD, PhD, Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, University of Pennsylvania.
December 7, 2022
Should Research Participants Share in the Profits?
Presenter: Patrizia Farci MD, Senior Researcher, NIAID.
Discussant: Glenn Cohen JD, James A. Attwood and Leslie Williams Professor of Law, Harvard Law School.
September 28, 2022
The Ethics of Care and Research with Individuals in Custody
Presenter: David Lang MD, MPH, Chief, Office of Patient Safety and Clinical Quality, NIH Clinical Center.
Discussant: Stephen Rosenfeld MD, MBA, Executive Director and Chair, North Star Review Board.
April 7, 2021
Using Left-over Clinical Samples for Research: When is it Ethical?
Presenter: James K. Gilman, MD, Chief Executive Officer, Clinical Center
Discussant: I. Glenn Cohen, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, Director of Harvard Law School's Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy Biotechnology, and Bioethics
February 3, 2021
The Ethics of Contact Tracing During a Pandemic
Presenter: Andrew Mannes MD, ME, Chief, Department of Perioperative Medicine, NIH Clinical Center
Discussant: Nancy Kass, ScD, Vice Provost for Graduate and Professional Education, and Phoebe R. Berman Professor of Bioethics and Public Health, Johns Hopkins University
December 2, 2020
The Ethics of Contact Tracing During a Pandemic
Presenter: Michael Parker, PhD, Director, Welcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities and Director, Ethox Centre, University of Oxford.
October 7, 2020
Vaccine trials for COVID-19: is there an obligation to offer the first vaccine shown to be effective to all participants?
Presenter: Emily Erbelding, NIAID
Discussants: Joe Millum, CC Department of Bioethics and Steve Goodman, Stanford University.
April 1, 2020
Prospect of Benefit and Moral Distress
Presenter: Alexander Freeman, NIAID
Discussant: Douglas B. White, Vice Chair and Professor of Critical Care Medicine, UPMC Endowed Chair for Ethics and Decision Making in Critical Illness
February 5, 2020
Capacity to Consent
Presenter: Christa Zerbe, MD, NIAID
Discussant: Paul Abbelbuam, MD, Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine and Law, Director, Division of Law, Ethics and Psychiatry, Columbia University
December 4, 2019
Pre-Natal Treatment
Presenter: Diana Bianchi, NICHD
Discussant: Larry McCullough, Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Medical Ethics, Baylor College of Medicine, Professor of Bioethics, Lecturer, Proseminar Health and Human Values, The Bioethics Program
October 2, 2019
Public/Private Partnerships
Presenter: Les Biesecker, NHGRI
Discussant: Bill Sage, James R. Dougherty Chair of Faculty Excellence, Professor (Department of Surgery and Perioperative Care)
April 3, 2019
Conflicts Between Patients' Religious Beliefs and Their Clinical Interests
Discussant: Farr Curlin, MD, Josiah C. Trent Professor of Medical Humanities, Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities and History of Medicine and; Co-Director, Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative, Duke University
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
How Should We Handle Challenging Surrogates?
Presenter: Sameer Kadri, MD, MS, Associate Research Physician; Head, Clinical Epidemiology Section, Critical Care Medicine Department, CC
Discussant: Dan Brudney, PhD, Professor of Philosophy, University of Chicago and Associate Faculty, MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, The University of Chicago Medicine
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Capacity to Give Consent
Presenter: Christa Zerbe, MD, Staff Clinician, Laboratory of Clinical Immunology and Microbiology, NIAID
Discussant: Paul S. Applebaum, MD, Dollard Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine and Law, Columbia University
Wednesday, October 3, 2018
The Ethics of Including Pregnant Women in Vaccine Research
Presenter: Karin Bok, MS, PhD, Senior Advisor, Vaccine Development, Office of the Director, Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Discussant: Maggie Little, BPhil, PhD, Senior Research Scholar, Kennedy Institute of Ethics, and Professor of Philosophy, Georgetown University
Wednesday, April 4, 2018
Assessing the Risks of Involving Medical Trainees in Patient Care: Should We Conduct Randomized Trials?
Presenter: Derek Braverman, BA, Yale University and Former Fellow, Bioethics Department and Medical Student, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Discussant: Peter Angelos, MD, PhD, Linda Kohler Anderson Professor of Surgery and Surgical Ethics and Chief, Endocrine Surgery; Associate Director, MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, University of Chicago Medicine
Wednesday, December 6th, 2017
Who Should Apologize for Medical Mistakes?
Presenter: Laura M. Lee, MS, RN, Director, Office of Patient Safety and Clinical Quality, NIH Clinical Center
Discussant: Rebecca Dresser JD, MS, Daniel Noyes Kirby Professor of Law and Professor of Ethics in School of Medicine, Washington University, St. Louis
Wednesday, October 4th, 2017
Research on Pediatric Biospecimens: Is Reconsent Necessary?
Presenters: Robert Tamburro, MD, MSc, Medical Officer, Pediatric Trauma and Critical Illness Branch, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Benjamin Berkman, JD, MPH, NIH Department of Bioethics and Deputy Director, National Human Genome Research Institute Bioethics Core
Discussant: Jonathan Berg MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Genetics, University of North Carolina School of Medicine at Chapel Hill