International Work
Study Abroad
Since 1986, and as recently as 2018, undergraduate and medical students have been going to London through the Medical Ethics and Health Policy London Study Abroad program. This five-week summer program compares the ethics and health policy of U.S. health care delivery and the British National Health Service. Center Professor Dr. Len Fleck serves at the course instructor.
Pictured: The 2014 London program students pose for a group photo with Dr. Fleck, taken outside Regent's University.
International Partnerships and Collaborations
The Center for Ethics faculty are continually working to establish and maintain international partnerships to connect and collaborate with the larger bioethics community. Below is a representation of ongoing projects and affiliations, as well as notable items from the past. Additional information about international items, such as conference presentations, can be found on the MSU Bioethics Blog.
Current Work
Southeast University
Nanjing, China
2010-present
The Center, together with the Department of Philosophy, entered into an affiliation agreement with the School of Humanities at Southeast University (SEU) in Nanjing, China in 2010. Under that agreement, the Center has hosted a visiting professor of medical ethics in 2015-16 (Dr. Guobin Cheng), and a visiting SEU PhD student. Drs. Tom Tomlinson and Devan Stahl have traveled to Southeast University to give talks, and continue to collaborate on research projects.
- Podcast: Comparing Chinese and American Bioethics: Cheng and Tomlinson - Episode 4
- Blog: Dr. Stahl visits Southeast University in China (2017)
- Blog: Dr. Tomlinson travels to China to speak at International Bioethics Summit (2015)
Pictured: Dr. Tomlinson (left) and Dr. Cheng at their presentation at the 2017 American Society for Bioethics and Humanities Annual Conference.
Past Work
Brocher Foundation Visiting Scholar Fellowships
Hermance, Switzerland
The Brocher Foundation is a Swiss non-profit private foundation that encourages multidisciplinary research on medical development. Dr. Len Fleck was a visiting researcher in 2011, working on edited volumes on the subject of rational democratic deliberation relating to advances in genetic technologies, and ethical issues related to bedside rationing.
Pictured: Dr. Fleck (front, fifth from left) with the Brocher Foundation Fellows and staff in Geneva, Switzerland in 2011.
University of Malawi and Fogarty International Center
Zomba, Malawi
2004-2008
With the support of the U.S. National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Center, the Center engaged in an international training program in partnership with the University of Malawi College of Medicine, dedicated to enhancing bioethics capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa. The training grant assisted African scholars to develop active research and teaching programs in the area of research ethics.
Read: Informed Consent in Africa for Adolescents’ Participation in Health Research by Rose Mwangi (Bioethics in the News June 2018)
Pictured: Fogarty Fellows apple picking in Michigan in 2006. Left to right: Rose Mwangi, Veronica Maluwa, Mike Kachedwa.
ABLE Program E-Dialogues
Malawi
1997-2012
From 1997-2012, Center Assistant Director Libby Bogdan-Lovis engaged College of Human Medicine Advanced Baccalaureate Leaning Experience (ABLE) medical school prematriculation students in a cross-continental bioethics e-dialogue with medical students in Malawi.
Pictured: 2006 ABLE program students and University of Malawi Medical Students in Blantyre, Malawi at the University of Malawi College of Human Medicine. Back Row: Left, Paul Ndebele. Back Row: Right, Joseph Mfutso-Bengo. All others are medical students at the University of Malawi.
The Cochrane Collaboration
In the 1990s, Libby Bogdan-Lovis’ work in the United Kingdom with the (then) newly formed Cochrane Collaboration included UK pilot research in examining midwives’ knowledge about and access to evidence based medicine. From 2008-2011, Bogdan-Lovis was appointed as an Advisory Board member for the Cochrane Developing Countries Field, an entity within the Cochrane Collaboration.
Costa Rica
Libby Bogdan-Lovis has collaborated on numerous projects in Costa Rica. From 2004-2007 that collaboration featured a partnership with the International Health Central American Institute (IHCAI) located in San José for a medical student spring break study abroad program, participation in the 2008 First Costa Rican Bioethics Conference, Seventh Iberoamerican Cochrane Network Annual Meeting, Fifth Annual Iberoamerican Clinical Practice Guidelines Network Meeting and Second Central American Branch of the Iberoamerican Cochrane Network Annual Meeting, the 2011 Asociación de Obstetricia y Ginecología de Costa Rica (AOGCR), Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology and Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences, Michigan State University Latin American Regional Symposium on Women’s Reproductive Health, and a 2009-2014 Strategic Partnership Initiative to facilitate a bilateral obstetrics and gynecology residency exchange program.