2007-2008 Fellows
Brian Cummings, MD is a third year Fellow in Pediatric Critical Care at Massachusetts General Hospital. He received his undergraduate degree in Biology at Boston College, received his medical degree from University of Connecticut, and completed his residency in pediatrics at MGH. He has had a long interest in end of life decision making and how it pertains to the medical profession and have intermittently investigated physician assisted suicide, limits of viability in neonates and the legal approach to resolving patient-physician disputes. He is interested in exploring how ethics are incorporated into medical education and how ethics shape our practice of medicine in the hospital and clinic.
John M. Driscoll, Jr., MD is an attending physician at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, Columbia University Medical Center. Until this past June, he was Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons and Physician-in-Chief, Pediatric Service, for the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital. Dr. Driscoll held the Reuben S. Carpentier Professorship for 15 years while serving as Chair. Before becoming Chairman, he was Director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and founded and chaired the Ethics Committee here at P&S in 1975. Subsequently, he chaired the Children’s Hospital Ethics Committee before he became Chairman. Dr. Driscoll was also a member of the Ethics Committee of the Archdiocese of Newark. He completed his pediatric residency and neonatal fellowship at Babies Hospital. He studied decision making in the NICU with Dr. Betty Levin, an anthropologist. His current interests include coursework in medical ethics which, after completion during his one-year sabbatical, he will teach to medical students and pediatric residents, focusing on humanism in medicine.
Katerina Christopoulos, MD, MPH is an infectious diseases fellow at Columbia University, where she received her MD/MPH. She completed a residency in internal medicine/primary care medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Prior to her life in medicine, she majored in English literature at Yale University and worked in book publishing in New York City. She is interested in ethical issues around expanded HIV testing in the U.S., especially normalization of testing and stigma, opt-out testing, and linkage to care. She also remains interested in the connection between literature and medicine as manifest in the field of narrative ethics.
Matthew Frank is a graduate student at Harvard University in the Divinity School. His academic work focuses on the intersection of ethics, law and social policy, particularly with regard to organizational and virtue ethics and healthcare and education policy. During the fellowship, he is interested in exploring the organizational practices of health insurance carriers and related legislation and reform proposals within a virtue ethics framework. Prior to graduate school, Matt worked for ten years in business - in finance with Goldman Sachs, among other firms, and in strategy consulting - and then for several years in the nonprofit sector.
Melissa Frumin, MD is a neuropsychiatrist in the Division of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She treats patients with the psychiatric sequelae of neurological disorders, such as MS, epilepsy and dementia. She is also a Chair of the Partners IRB. Dr. Frumin received her MD and MS in the Joint Medical Program at UC San Francisco/UC Berkeley. She completed her psychiatric residency at MGH and a Medical Psychiatry/Neuropsychiatry Fellowship at BWH. Her current research interest is in studying the use of advanced directives for participation in research. She is also a Board member of Outdoor Explorations, which provides outdoor adventures for people with disabilities.
Rupali Gandhi, JD, MD is a first year Fellow in Pediatric Cardiology at Boston Children’s Hospital and a brand new mother to a 3 week old at the start of the DME fellowship! She received her undergraduate degree in Biology at Stanford University, her law degree from Yale Law School and her medical degree from Yale School of Medicine. She then completed her residency in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital. She has had an interest in a variety of bioethical issues, including assisted reproduction, gene therapy, children as research subjects, and reform of IRBs. Currently, she is interested in pursuing a research project that evaluates how cardiologists at different institutions offer prenatal counseling when a severe congenital heart problem is found during an prenatal ultrasound.
Farrah Mateen, MD is a third year adult neurology resident at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. She is originally from Saskatchewan, Canada and has a particular interest in neuroethics, public health, and writing.
Patrick L. Taylor, JD is Deputy General Counsel and Chief Counsel, Research Affairs, at Children’s Hospital Boston, in a position focused mostly on legal and policy issues in biomedical research, biotechnology (including intellectual property, start-ups and licensing), research ethics, privacy, human subject protection and compliance. He has had a diverse career in representing and counseling not-for-profit, for-profit, and government clients involved in health, biotechnology, medical research, and human services. He received his BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Phi Beta Kappa, highest honors), and received his JD with honors from Columbia University Law School. He also holds a faculty position as a Lecturer at Harvard Medical School. His research and writing focus on issues in research ethics, academic-industry collaborations, conflicts of interest, stem cell research, privacy, and the electronic medical record network. His writings have appeared in Science, Nature Biotechnology, Cell Stem Cell, Academic Medicine, Drug Development, and Science and Engineering Ethics, as well as numerous legal journals.
Bjorg Thorsteindottir, MD is a primary care physician at Mayo Clinic Rochester Minnesota. She is a graduate of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland and the Mayo Clinic Categorical Internal Medicine residency program. She was the president of the International Feration of Medical Student’s Association from 1997-98. She is new to the field of bioethics. Her primary interest is in health care policy and how different societal attitudes/policies affect what is considered acceptable when rationing care.