Georgetown Law School

A lecture by Prof. Farr Curlin, M.D. (Duke Divinity School)

McDonough Hall, Room 342

12:45 PM

Free and open to the public.

This lecture is sponsored by the Thomistic Institute.

Lecture Description:

With respect to debates about life support, palliation, and “physician aid-in-dying”, everything turns on what we believe medicine is for. In this talk, Dr. Farr Curlin will contrast the New Medicine, which aims to maximize patient “well-being” according to the patient’s subjective judgment, and the Traditional Approach, which pursues the patient’s health while respecting the patient’s authority to decline what the physician proposes. He will argue that the Traditional Approach better satisfies the demands of medicine and the demands of practical reason.

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Curlin is a hospice and palliative care physician who joined Duke University in January 2014 where he holds joint appointments in the School of Medicine, including its Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine, and in Duke Divinity School, including its Initiative on Theology, Medicine and Culture. He works with Duke colleagues to foster scholarship, study, and training regarding the intersections of medicine, ethics, and religion.