![]() ![]() ![]() The program’s goal, and hope, is that students will serve as catalysts for discussions on medical ethics after returning to their respective institutions. Mercurio and Hughes have also served as ethics discussants on the trip. ![]() Siegel, M.D., FW ’95, associate professor of medicine (pulmonary), in partnership with FASPE staff. Mercurio, M.D., HS ’85, professor of pediatrics, and Mark D. Hughes, M.D., HS ’76, professor of medicine, Mark R. It is important, she said, for students to think about a situation “where our profession not only didn’t behave ethically, but behaved unethically.”įASPE’s medical curriculum was designed by Duffy and John S. “It need not be Auschwitz or Abu Ghraib or Rwanda-there are things that are done daily where physicians need to be aware of the power that we have and the ability to go off track,” she said. “This program allows us to take a step back and talk about ethical issues and doing it at Auschwitz makes it a life-changing experience.”Īngoff noted that doctors make countless ethical decisions every day. “With the advent of technology and the speed at which we do things, it’s not clear how we even frame ethical questions to keep pace with such change,” said David Goldman, J.D., a lawyer in New York who approached Duffy, a social acquaintance, with the program concept. During the final days of the trip, fellows tackle such contemporary ethical issues as end-of-life decisions and the provision of health care with limited dollars. Then students attend seminars with leading scholars and visit such sites as the House of the Wannsee Conference in Berlin, where Nazi leaders drew up plans for the “Final Solution” the Deportation Memorial “Track 17,” one of the train platforms where Berlin’s Jews were forced to board trains heading to concentration camps and Auschwitz-Birkenau, where more than one million people perished. The 10-day fellowship begins in mid-June with an introductory session at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City. So far, 126 students in all four fields have taken part. Initially geared towards medical and law students, it has expanded to include those in divinity and journalism programs nationwide. Levin is one of 34 medical students selected to take part since the program began. ’90, HS ’93, associate dean for student affairs, and other faculty at the School of Medicine launched the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE) in 2010, in collaboration with staff from the Museum of Jewish Heritage and other professional schools. “Instead, leaders of the medical and legal professions played a decisive role in enabling, designing, and executing what happened during the Holocaust.”ĭuffy, along with Nancy R. Duffy, M.D., professor of medicine and director of the Program for Humanities in Medicine. Yet one of the greatest evils that has ever been perpetrated on humankind could not have occurred without the participation of physicians-the very professionals who should have been the major bulwarks against it,” said Thomas P. “We focus a great deal on medical professionalism in medical school. Levin made the journey to Auschwitz-Birkenau to participate in a new program that uses the Holocaust as a backdrop for discussions of contemporary ethics. Ultimately became active participants in horrific acts of genocide. Nazi doctors performed guinea pig-like experimentation-poisonings, surgeries without anesthesia, and exposure to extreme cold or hot temperatures-on Jews, Roma, and people with disabilities. “Where were they standing?” he recalled asking himself, trying to come to grips with the idea that physicians, professionals supposedly dedicated to healing, could have had a hand in unspeakable acts. What made it even worse was the knowledge that doctors had played a role in the atrocities that took place there. “The camp was absolutely enormous, and it was unbelievable that it could have been built-that it wasn’t somehow stopped,” said Levin. As medical student Jonathan Levin stood on the grounds of the former Nazi concentration camp at Birkenau, Germany, on a wet and cold summer day in 2011, he was unprepared for what he saw and felt. ![]()
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