Events



2024-2025 CCME Events

10/9/24, Lecture & Reception
Using Your Stories of Suffering to Connect with Patients
Dr. Cortessa Russell, MD, Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, Columbia University Medical Center, Annual Lisio Family Lecture

10/16/24, Lecture & Lunch
All You Need Is Love: Human Connection and Health
First Annual Medical Ethics Grand Rounds co-hosted by the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics
Diane E. Meier, MD, Professor, Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine

11/13/24, Lecture & Lunch
Artificial Womb Technology: Some Ethical Considerations
Dr. Mark R. Mercurio, MD, MA, Professor of Pediatrics, Yale University School of Medicine

1/27/25, Lecture & Lunch
Holocaust Remembrance Day Lecture
Dr. Katherine Fischkoff, MD, Columbia Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons

2/10/25, Lecture & Lunch
Ethics for Lunch Talk
Dr. Lydia Dugdale, MD, MAR, Professor of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center Hosted by Columbia’s Master of Science in Bioethics program



2023-2024 CCME Events

10/4/23, Lecture & Reception
Meaning in Medicine
Dr. Kristin M. Collier, MD, FACP, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Annual Lisio Family Lecture

10/17/23, Lecture & Lunch
The Role of Choice and Control at the End of Life: Why, How, and to Whom Does Choice Matter?
Els van Wijngaarden, PhD, Associate Professor, Radbound University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands

11/13/23, Lecture & Lunch
Touching Purpose: Recovering Medicine from the Speed of Thought
Ashley Moyse, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics, Columbia Center for Clinical Medical Ethics

1/26/24, Lecture & Lunch
From Healers to Killers: The Role Reversal of Doctors in Nazi Germany and the Question of Professional Ethics
Thorsten Wagner, Executive Director for Strategy and Academics, Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE)

2/1/24, Panel Discussion at USNA Chaplains Center, Annapolis, McDonald Colloquium on Moral Injury in Medicine & the Military
Moral Triage: What Medical and Military Contexts Teach Us About Moral Injury, Character, and Making Decisions When Life is on the Line
Beatriz Desanti de Oliveira, MD; Chaplain Timothy Mallard; Joseph Chapa, PhD; Warren Kinghorn, MD, ThD; Lydia Dugdale, MD, MAR; Marc LiVecche

2/12/24, Panel Discussion & Lunch
Inter-religious Panel on Hope in the Face of Illness
Soren Glassing - Staff Chaplain and Palliative Care Team Chaplain, NYP, speaking from a Buddhist Perspective
Rev. Jon Overvold – Corporate Director, Spiritual Care & Chaplaincy, NYP, speaking from a Christian Perspective
Rabbai Mychal Springer – Manager of Clinical Pastoral Education, NYP, speaking from a Jewish Perspective
Sarah Emine Unal – Staff Chaplain, NYP, speaking from a Muslim Perspective
Discussion moderated by Lydia Dugdale, MD, MAR
Co-hosted with NYP Department of Spiritual Care and Chaplaincy, Columbia Orthodox Students Association

3/5/24, Lecture & Lunch
What is the Role of Virtue in Good Medicine?
Ian Pebbles, PhD, Harold T. Shapiro Postdoctoral Research Associate in Bioethics in Princeton University’s Center for Human Values

4/8/24, Book Talk & Reception
Friendship, Madness and the Tragedy of Good Intentions
Book Discussion with Jonathan Rosen, MA.
Co-hosted with Columbia Psychiatry

4/26/24, Lecture, Online
Market Medicine? How Money is Changing the Experience of Medicine, and What Practitioners and Organizations Can Do About It, Panel discussion, Harvard Medical School’s Organizational Ethics Consortia
Lydia Dugdale, MD, Director, Columbia Center for Clinical Medical Ethics,
Jonathan Cahill, PhD, Post-doctoral Fellow, Columbia Center for Clinical Medical Ethics
Ian Corbin, PhD, Director Human Network Initiative, Harvard Medical School
Omar B. Lateef, DO, President and CEO of RUSH University System for Health



2022-2023 CCME Events

9/20/22, Lecture & Reception
Abraham Nussbaum, MD, University of Colorado, Denver Health, Annual Lisio Family Lecture
Reading for Resilience & Resistance: How Great Books Make Better Doctors

10/3/22, Lecture & Reception
Christine Emba, Columnist, The Washington Post
Rethinking Sex: Better than Consent

11/4/22
Rebecca Puhl, PhD, Teaching Professor, Department of Human Development & Family Sciences Deputy Director, Rudd Center for Food Policy & Health, University of Connecticut
Weight stigma and discrimination: Impact on Patient Health and Healthcare

Co-hosted with Columbia MS Bioethics Program.

12/1/22, Lecture & Reception
Ashley Moyse, PhD, VP&S, Growing Good Physicians: Caretaking, attention and good medicine

1/26/23, Fill screening followed by Q&A
Dr. Gabriel Sara, Dr. Lydia Dugdale, and Shanny Peer, Peaceful, Film screening followed by Q&A
Co-hosted with Columbia Maison Francaise.

1/27/23, Lecture & Lunch
Dr. Ken Prager, VP&S
How Physicians Partnered with the Nazi Regime: Possible Lessons for Today

2/15/23, Lecture & Reception
Dr. Lydia Dugdale, VP&S
Pros & Cons of Physician-Assisted Suicide (Aid in Dying)

3/30/23, Lecture & Reception, VEC 201
Dr. Azra Raza, VP&S
Cancer and its Discontents: Speaking about the Unspeakable

4/28/23, Lecture, Panel Discussion & Reception
Symposium on Segregated Healthcare: Redesigning Care for Equity
Dr. Lydia Dugdale, MD, MAR; Dr. Robert Fullilove, MS, EdD; Dr. Jean Emond, MD; Dr. Fleck, MD, MPH; Dr. Jean-Marie Alves-Bradford, MD; Dr. Richard Mayeux, MD, MSc



2021-2022 CCME Events

Event dates are subject to change. Please email ethics@cumc.columbia.edu for up-to-date event queries.

09/20/21
Farr Curlin, MD, Duke University, Lisio Family Lecture
Mere healers: What Medical Training is For and Why it Matters

10/28/21
Elaine Scarry, PhD, Harvard University
On Beauty and Being Just: Reckoning with a Plague Year

11/15/21
Mark Komrad, MD, Teaching faculty at Johns Hopkins, University of Maryland, and Tulane
Physician Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia of Non-Terminal Psychiatric Patients: An Emerging Ethical Crisis, Hosted by the Center for Law, Ethics and Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, CUIMC

11/15/21
Mark Komrad, MD, Teaching faculty at Johns Hopkins, University of Maryland, and Tulane
Vulnerable Ethics: The Role of Lead Psychiatrists in the US Eugenics and Forced Sterilization Movement and the Nazi Holocaust

12/08/21
Martha Gershun & John D. Lantos, MD, Children’s Mercy Bioethics Center
The Ethics of Living Organ Transplantation- “Kidney to Share?”

1/27/22
Ken Prager, MD, VP&S, Columbia University
How Physicians Partnered with the Nazi Regime: Possible Lessons for Today
Q&A moderated by Katherine Fischkoff, MD, MPA, FACS, moderator, VP&S, Columbia University

2/23/22
Mark Mercurio, MD, MA, Yale University
Ethical Challenges in the Care of the Critically Ill Newborn
Q&A moderated by Elvira Parravicini, MD, VP&S, Columbia University

4/18/22
Melissa Moschella, PhD, Catholic University of America
Meeting on Conscience Protection. Participation is by invitation only.

5/6/22, Vagelos Education Center, Columbia University
Symposium on Segregated Healthcare at Columbia-NYP
Dr. Lydia Dugdale, Dr. Bob Fullilove, Dr. Lawrence Brown, Dr. Donna Lynne, Dr. Julia Iyasere, Dr. Kamini Doobay



2020-2021 CCME Events


9/14/20
Professor Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Emory University, Biomedical Ethics and the Existential Threat to Persons with Disabilities.

10/6/20
David Grande, MD, MPA, University of Pennsylvania, Ethics & Digital Technology

10/30/20
Sarah Wakeman, MD, Harvard University, Ethics & Opioids: Part I, Ethical and Effective Responses to the Overdose Crisis, in conjunction with the Columbia University Masters of Science in Bioethics Program.

11/12/20
Helena Hansen, MD PhD, NYU, Ethics & Opioids: Part II, Racial and Socioeconomic Considerations, in conjunction with the Columbia University Masters of Science in Bioethics Program.

12/9/20
Katherine Fischkoff, MD, VP&S, Columbia University, Film screening & discussion of Belly of the Beast

1/27/21
Ken Prager, MD, VP&S, Columbia University, How Physicians Partnered with the Nazi Regime: Possible Lessons for Today.

2/3/21
Katrina Karkazis, PhD, Yale University, Intersex: Legal, Ethical and Human Rights.

3/4/21
Craig Blinderman, MD, VP&S, Columbia University, Ethical Dilemmas in Palliative Care: The Near and The Far.

3/10/21
Homer Venters, MD, former Chief Medical Officer of the New York City jail system, Incarceration and Bioethics: Health Challenges that Need our Attention, in conjunction with the Columbia University Bioethics Program.

4/21/21
Harriet Washington, Writer in Medical Ethics, Author of Medical Apartheid, Ethics of Student-Run Clinics.

5/20/21
The Ethics of Heart Transplantation
Panelists: Dr. Dugdale, Dr. Fischkoff, Dr. Prager, Dr. Hastie, Dr. Farr




2019-2020 CCME Events

09/24/19
Dr. Ken Prager, VP&S, How Physicians Partnered with the Nazi Regime: Possible Lessons for Today

10/30/19
Dr. Lydia Dugdale, VP&S, Pros & Cons of Physician-Assisted Suicide (Aid in Dying)

12/2/19
Angela Rosetti, MBA, MBE, Biopharmaceutical Executive, The Ethics of Drug Pricing

01/22/20
Dr. Tia Powell, Ethical Issues in Dementia
Dr. Shoshanah Trachtenberg Frackman Chair in Bioethics
Director, Montefiore Einstein Center for Bioethics
Professor of Epidemiology and Psychiatry
Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Dr. Craig Blinderman, VP&S, moderator

02/5/20
Dr. Robert Klitzman, VP&S, Designing Babies: How Technology is Changing the Ways We Create Children

02/26/20
Dr. Julia Wattacheril, together with Dr. Akhil Shenoy, VP&S, Ethics of Organ Transplantation

03/30/20
James Colgrove, PhD, MPH, Vaccines and Ethics
Dean of the Postbac Premed Program, Columbia School of General Studies
Professor of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia Mailman School of Public Health

4/1/20
Dr. Prager, together with Dr. Dugdale, VP&S, Ventilator Shortages: What Do We Do? A Discussion for Medical Trainees

06/15/20
Patrick T. Smith, PhD, Duke University together with Gabrielle Daniels, MPH, MA, Equal Justice Initiative, Ethics & Racial Injustice



Lisio Family Lecture

About the Lisio Family Lectureship:
The annual Lisio Family Lecture was endowed by Drs. Arnold Lisio and Anne Moore to bring nationally renowned speakers to Columbia University Medical Center to address important ethical issues at the core of medical practice. The Lisio family’s vision is that this lectureship contribute to the ethical formation of medical students and the flourishing of the doctor-patient relationship.

An internist, Dr. Lisio came to Columbia in 1961, and led an active clinical practice until his retirement in 2015. Dr. Moore is a 1969 graduate of Columbia College of Physicians & Surgeons. She is a medical oncologist on the faculty of Weill Cornell Medicine.


Lisio Lecture & Reception

Past Lecturers

9/20/21
Farr Curlin, MD, Duke University, Inaugural Lisio Family Lecture, Mere Healers: What Medical Training is for and Why it Matters

9/20/22
Abraham Nussbaum, MD, University of Colorado, Denver Health, Reading for Resilience & Resistance: How Great Books Make Better Doctors


10/04/2023
Dr. Kristin M. Collier, MD, FACP, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Meaning in Medicine


10/9/24
Dr. Cortessa Russell, MD, Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, Columbia University Medical Center, Using Your Stories of Suffering to Connect with Patients


Medicine and the Art of Ethics Colloquium


A small group of vocational artists, physicians, ethicists, philosophers, and theologians meet yearly or twice-yearly to discuss their work related to the intersection of medicine, ethics, and aesthetics. Participation is by invitation only. The colloquium is sponsored by the McDonald Agape Foundation.


McDonald Colloquium on Moral Injury in Medicine & the Military


Colloquium held January 31, 2024 - February 1, 2024, in Annapolis, MD. Participation is by invitation only.