Wednesday, 27 February 2013
12:30-1:30 pm
Jordan Conference Center Auditorium
University of Virginia School of Medicine
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A John F. Anderson Memorial Lecture
The Last Walk:
Our Companion Animals at the End of Their Lives
Jessica Pierce PhD MDiv, Independent Bioethics Scholar and author, The Last Walk: Reflections on Our Pets at the End of Their Lives, Lyons CO
Susan Bauer-Wu PhD RN FAAN, Kluge Professor of Contemplative End-of-Life Care, School of Nursing, UVA
Unfortunately, the love we feel for our animals can inure us to their suffering. We may wait for our animal to “tell us she is ready,” but our love can make it hard to hear her cries. –Jessica Pierce, “Deciding When a Pet Has Suffered Enough,” The New York Times, 22 Sept 2012
As our companion animals grow old and infirm, veterinarians and human caregivers alike face a complex and confusing array of choices and decisions. This Medical Center Hour explores some of the central moral challenges in end-of-life care for animals, from pain management and quality-of-life assessments to palliative treatment, hospice care, and making that final decision to hasten an animal’s death. Considering this “last walk” with our pets, bioethicist Jessica Pierce and compassionate care advocate Susan Bauer-Wu borrow some ethical guideposts from the field of human bioethics (and offer a few in return).
Co-presented with the Institute for Practical Ethics and Public Life, UVA ______________________________
This program is free and open to the entire university and the public. Health professionals who attend may apply for continuing education credit. Medical Center Hour counts toward first-year medical students’ SIM requirements.
The Medical Center Hour is produced weekly throughout the academic year by the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Humanities of the University of Virginia School of Medicine. Our series includes History of the Health Sciences Lectures, which we produce together with Historical Collections in the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library.
For information, call 434.924.5974 or see
Watch Medical Center Hour on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/uvamch. Videos are posted a week after the program.
