Defining Death and Saving Lives: 2019 Lester Crown Symposium

Here is a third world class conference devoted to brain death in less than a year. 

Duke's Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities and History of Medicine is hosting a one-day symposium that will explore several questions of great interest and controversy related to the adequacy of the "brain death" definition of death and the implications of revising this definition for the current practice and regulation of vital organ transplantations.

The symposium follows the 2019 McGovern Lecture on Thursday evening, February 28, Defining Death: Persistent Problems and Possible Solutions by Robert Truog. On Friday, March 1, Three panels of distinguished experts from Duke and around the country will engage these questions in a format with ample room for audience participation.  

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.

Panel 2. Public policy and public trust
Michael Nair-Collins, PhD (Florida State), Julius Wilder, MD, PhD (Duke), and James DuBois, PhD (Washington University) discuss 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?

Panel 3. Clinical perspectives
Carolyn Pizoli, MD, PhD, Nancy Knudsen, MD, Stuart Knechtle, MD (Duke University School of Medicine) discuss which groups would be most affected by changes to the definition of death? How would these groups be affected?