All sessions during this symposium will take place in the Great Hall in the Trent Semans Center at 8 Coal Pile Drive (also known as 8 Searle Center Drive), Duke University.

Thursday, February 28, 2019

5:45pm      2019 McGovern Lecture

Defining Death: Persistent Problems and Possible Solutions

Robert Truog, MD
Harvard Medical School

Robert Truog, MD is Frances Glessner Lee Professor of Medical Ethics, Anaesthesiology and Pediatrics and Director of the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School. He also practices pediatric intensive care medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital.  Dr. Truog has published more than 300 articles in bioethics and related disciplines.  He is co-author of Death, Dying, and Organ Transplantation (Oxford, 2012).  He lectures widely both nationally and internationally; and is an active member of numerous committees and advisory boards. He is the author of current national guidelines for providing end-of-life care in the intensive care unit. 

Reception to follow

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Friday, March 1, 2019

8:00am      Registration and Continental Breakfast

8:30am      Welcome

8:45am      Panel 1. When is death?

Alan Shewmon, MD (UCLA) and James Bernat, MD (Dartmouth) debate the adequacy of brain death as a definition of death.

10:30am      Break

10:45am      Panel 2. Public policy and public trust

Michael Nair-Collins, PhD (Florida State), Julius Wilder, MD, PhD
(Duke), and James DuBois, PhD (Washington University)

How would rejecting the brain death definition affect public confidence in vital organ transplantation? Would the practical viability of the enterprise be threatened? What role should the public itself play in deciding the rules under which organ transplantation proceeds?

12:30pm      Lunch

1:30pm       Panel 3. Clinical perspectives

Carolyn Pizoli, MD, PhD, Nancy Knudsen, MD, Stuart Knechtle, MD (Duke University School of Medicine), and Sandra Coley, D.Min. (Shaw University) donor mom

Which groups would be most affected by changes to the definition of death? How would these groups be affected? Discussion with Duke clinicians and donor parent

3:30pm      Adjourn