2006-2007 Fellows
Craig Blinderman is an attending physician in the Palliative Care Service at Massachusetts General Hospital. He received his undergraduate degree in Chemistry at Boston University and his Master’s degree in philosophy at Columbia University. He received his medical degree from Ben Gurion University at the Medical School for International Health. He completed both a residency in Family medicine and a one year fellowship in Palliative Care at Beth Israel Medicine Center in New York. His interests are in end of life decision-making, international health ethics and human rights, theories of justice, virtue ethics and the application of Jewish medical ethics in palliative care.
Jennifer Cohn-Kesselheim is entering a second year as a pediatric Hematology-Oncology fellow at Children’s Hospital Boston and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine where she also earned a Masters degree in Bioethics. Since moving to Boston to pursue residency and fellowship training, she has maintained an interest in ethics education. Jennifer’s work has included the development and implementation of a curriculum in bioethics for pediatric residents as well as national surveys to explore the ethics education provided to trainees in pediatrics.
Martha Farmer is an independent consultant in healthcare communications, working with biotechnology companies developing new therapeutics. Dr. Farmer earned both her B.S. in Zoology and Ph.D. in Physiology and Pharmacology from Duke University with postdoctoral training at the Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Farmer worked for twenty years in government and industry research programs aimed at the development of hemoglobin-based oxygen carriers with applications in trauma resuscitation and ischemic injury. While at Baxter Healthcare she worked closely with the Society for Critical Care Medicine to resolve regulatory and ethical issues in clinical research involving life-threatening emergencies that necessitate an exception to the requirement for informed consent. More recently Dr. Farmer has worked with stem cell companies where her scientific and bioethical research interests meet again. She serves on an IRB and on the Ethics Committee of Hospice North Shore. She is interested in exploring evolving attitudes toward the ethics of new technologies, specifically pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and embryonic stem cell research.
Judi Beckman Friedson is a clinical nurse ethics consultant whose career began as a founding member of the ethics committee and ethics consultation service at University of California, San Diego. She has a graduate degree in health communication and completed a 12-month clinical ethics program at the University of Washington. Currently, she consults in Massachusetts for different healthcare agencies educating healthcare professionals about clinical ethical issues, assisting with the development of ethics committees and ethics consultation services, and writing about ethical issues. Her primary interest is exploring how ethics consultations benefit patient care, and what characteristics of the ethics consultation process influence the outcomes.
Meredith Giglia is a Fellow in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine at Children’s Hospital, Boston. Dr. Giglia received her medical degree from the University of Kentucky, College of Medicine in 2002. In 2004, she received the AMSPDC Frontiers in Science Award. Her research project will deal with physician decision-making regarding withdrawal of life support for pediatric patients with neurologic injury. She is eager to expand her knowledge of ethical principles and practical approaches to answering academic questions in the field of biomedical ethics.
Maya Mundkur Greer is the Research Subject Advocate for Children’s Hospital. She completed her Master’s in Nursing from Yale and has practiced as a Family Nurse Practitioner for nearly 18 years. The majority of her work has been with the disenfranchised–homeless adults and families, HIV infected individuals, inner city populations, and incarcerated adults. In 1995 she completed a fellowship in Adolescent Medicine; she designed and implemented a primary health care center for homeless adolescents that gained national recognition. In her current position, Ms. Greer is responsible for reviewing and commenting on the ethical integrity of the research proposed through the General Clinical Research Center at Children’s Hospital, Boston. She is interested in the emerging area of neuro-ethics and issues related to pediatric research.
Carol Powers is an attorney in private practice on the North Shore of Boston. She received degrees from Vanderbilt University (B.S.) and Boston College Law School (J.D.). She has served as a community member of the Children’s Hospital Ethics Advisory Committee for 18 years and she is currently Co-Chair of the Department of Mental Retardation Region 3 Ethics Advisory Committee. She intends to work toward the creation of a Community Based Ethics Committee that will represent the views of individuals from various demographic groups with different socioeconomic, religious and cultural backgrounds. With training and experience, those representatives can contribute currently unheard voices to the discussion of those ethical dilemmas under consideration by the Ethics Committees within the Harvard Medical School’s teaching hospitals.
Catherine Rich is a clinician educator and junior faculty member in the Department of General Internal Medicine at Boston University Medical Center. She has a primary care practice at the Commonwealth Medical Group where she sees patients from adolescents to seniors. She also teaches residents in clinic and on the wards at Boston Medical Center. Her interests include the study of narrative ethics as a way of enhancing doctor patient relationships, and teaching an ethical approach to caring for individuals at the end of life.
Julie Richer is a fourth year Medical Genetics Resident at the University of Manitoba (Canada), where she was the Chief Resident last year. She received her medical degree from the University of Montreal in 2003. She is interested in issues related to DNA banking, particularly as it pertains to population consent and proxy consent.
Steven Ringer is the Chief of Neonatology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Ringer received his undergraduate studies at Brandeis University and his MD and PhD at Case Western Reserve University. Following his Pediatrics residency at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, he completed his fellowship in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at Harvard Medical School and joined the faculty. His research interests have included determining the antecedents of cerebral injury in preterm infants and the impact of maternal anesthesia on neonatal outcome. He serves as the Co-Chair of the BWH Ethics Committee and has been actively involved in Ethics Consultations at BWH for several years.
Monica Stallworth is a board certified geriatrician on the faculty at Harvard Medical School. She is also the Medical Director of Neville Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center at Fresh Pond, the oldest elder care facility in Cambridge which started in 1779. She is an Evercare Hospice Medical Director. She graduated from the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine and completed residency at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX. Her geriatric fellowship was performed at Georgetown University in Washington DC. Prior to coming to Harvard University, Dr. Stallworth was on faculty at Georgetown University where she directed their Geriatric Assessment Clinic and their Housecall Program. Dr. Stallworth has a clinical practice with the Cambridge Health Alliance. The services she provides include hospital care, outpatient care and housecalls. As a Harvard Medical School Faculty her teaching responsibilities involve the Harvard Geriatric Fellows and CHA Internal Medicine Residents. Dr. Stallworth likes “threes”. She is board certified in three areas including geriatrics, hospices and palliative medicine. She has completed three fellowships. She now has completed three master degrees including a research degree from Harvard and most recently, this year, a degree in Health Care Administration. She has served on several boards including Board of Directors of her Rotary Club, and the Baldwin National Quality Program created by President Ronald Regan. Dr. Stallworth is a published author in geriatrics. She has been an invited speaker on geriatric topics nationally and internationally. Her area of interest is decision making processes integrating advanced technology with terminal care ethics.
Angelo Volandes is a Fellow at the Center for Bioethics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He joined the Center for Bioethics after completing a faculty fellowship in ethics at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. Dr. Volandes is a graduate of Harvard University and the Yale School of Medicine. He completed his residency training in internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. His research is focused on empirical and philosophical analysis of contemporary ethical issues in medicine. His interests include Alzheimer’s disease, genetic enhancements, stem cells, and theoretical frameworks for medical ethics. Dr. Volandes has also produced a documentary film in medical ethics entitled Illness As Experience and is pursuing other uses of film in medicine.