YCT’s weeklong End of Life Medical Ethics Conference took place last week.

We have recorded all the sessions, they are available here. Watch the videos here.

Click here for Source Sheets:

On Brain Death:

Brain Death and Organ Donation

Yoma 85a

Additional Material:

Iggrot Moshe - Brain Death

Primary Sources - Brain Death and Organ Donations

On Withholding and Withdrawing:

Iggrot Moshe - End of Life

Nishmat Avraham 339.4 - Withholding and Withdrawing Treatment

Primary Sources - Withholding and Withdrawing Treatment

 

Health Care Proxy links:

The morning and afternoon hours consisted of introductory lectures, students learning primary sources and working up cases, and then students presenting their cases to a panel of experts in halakha, pastoral care, and medical ethics.  Tuesday and Wednesday were devoted to End of Life issues, in particular the questions of withholding and withdrawing treatment, and Thursday was devoted to the topic of the definition of death and organ donation.  We were blessed to have top experts in the field participate, including Dr. Kenneth Prager, Director of Medical Ethics and Chairman of the Medical Ethics Committee of Columbia University Medical Center; Dr. Gaya Aranoff, Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Columbia University; Dr. Alan Astrow, Director of the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology at the Maimonides Cancer Center; and Dr. Barbara Paris, Vice Chair, Medicine and Director of the Division of Geriatrics at Maimonides Medical Center.  On Thursday we were also joined by four of Dr. Prager's medical students from Columbia University Medical Center.     

The students’ presentations were thoughtful and thorough, and the feedback was invaluable, helping our students understand the tremendous power that they have as rabbis interacting with people at these moments - tremendous power to help, if they do it right, but to harm, if they do it wrong.  Our experts help guide the students to how to best handle challenging situations.

We were also thrilled to have our own Rabbi Dr. Tsvi Blanchard, who has written a book on this topic, together with Dr. Michelle Friedman and Rabbi Yaakov Love, as key participants in the program.  Rabbi Blanchard was present at all the sessions, sharing his wisdom and experience on these issues, and helping frame them in the context of Jewish ethics and not just halakha.

We were particularly blessed to have Rabbi Jason Weiner (YCT 2006) with us.  Rabbi Weiner is the Rabbi & Manager of Spiritual Care Department, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, and sat on both panels. He also gave short lectures on end-of-life care, brain death and organ donation, and the challenges of being a hospital chaplain.   Rabbi Weiner's humor, sensitivity, knowledge, and wisdom permeated every comment and presentation he made, and we could not be more proud of the work he is doing and the impact that he has having.  We know that he will be a role model and mentor to our students when they become rabbis.

Click here for the full conference schedule