Dean’s Seminar Series featuring Matthew Wynia, MD, MPH – “How Healers Became Killers: Nazi Doctors and Modern Medical Ethics”

Cosponsored by the School of Medicine Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics, the Kennedy Institute of Ethics and the Center for Innovation and Leadership in Education (CENTILE).

Title:

“How Healers Became Killers: Nazi Doctors and Modern Medical Ethics”

Abstract: 

The terrible history of health professional involvement in the Holocaust has probably had a greater influence on how modern medical ethics is conceived than any other event. Whether one studies or teaches the ethics of genetics, informed consent, public health, death and dying, abortion, medical research, the treatment of refugees and prisoners or any other part of modern bioethics, the way we think about these issues has been deeply influenced, implicitly or explicitly, by the crimes of the Nazi doctors. Dr. Wynia will explore the legacy of health professional involvement in the Holocaust and how it continues to resonate in health care and society today

Speaker:

Matthew Wynia, MD, MPH
Director, Center for Bioethics and Humanities
Professor, University of Colorado School of Medicine and Colorado School of Public Health

Matthew Wynia, MD, MPH is Board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases, with additional training in public health and health services research. He has worked nationally and internationally on issues related to professionalism and the social roles of physicians, including the roles of health professionals in the Holocaust and the contemporary implications of this legacy. He currently leads the University of Colorado’s Center for Bioethics and Humanities, where the Holocaust, Genocide and Contemporary Bioethics program spans all health sciences training programs and all 4 campuses.

In his work with organizations including the American Medical Association, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, the American Board of Medical Specialties, and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Dr. Wynia has led national projects on medicine and the Holocaust, defining “professionalism”, public health and disaster ethics, ideologically-motivated violence and more. He has served on numerous committees and panels, including service on the Blue Ribbon panel that examined changes to the ethics policies and structures of the American Psychological Association following that group’s involvement in the Bush Administration’s coercive interrogation (torture) program.

Dr. Wynia has delivered more than 2 dozen named lectures and visiting professorships and is the author of more than 170 published articles. Among other leadership roles, he has served as president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH), chair of the Ethics Forum of the American Public Health Association (APHA) and chair of the Ethics Committee of the Society for General Internal Medicine (SGIM).

***CME Credit will be offered for this seminar***