Bioethics in the Margins

About Bioethics in the Margins

Who we are: We are a collaborative of bioethics scholars interested in creating a more inclusive space to explore topics relevant to bioethics and the medical humanities while advancing equity and social change/restitution. Although we found our shared interests through our membership in the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities Race Affinity Group, we are independent of ASBH and any other organization. The views expressed in this podcast are our own and the speakers and do not represent our employers, institutions, or professional societies. Mission: Bioethics in the Margins aims to include topics, guests and audiences who are not always highlighted in mainstream bioethics discourse. We will focus on structural inequity and the role bioethics can play in social change. We aim to move beyond traditional bioethics frameworks and intentionally draw on intersectionality, social justice, racial justice, disability ethics, women, LGBTQ ethics, and topics specific to Black, immigrant/refugee, Native American, Latinx populations. Hosts: Kirk Johnson, Amelia Barwise Team Members: Gargi Pandey, Creative Director; Madeline Mahoney, Sound Editor; Wendy Jiang, Social Media Manager; Nicolle Strand, Advisor; Liz Chuang, Producer

Publisher

Kirk Johnson and Amelia Barwise

Category

religion & spirituality · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

27 Sept 2021

Latest episode

27 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

47 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   27 Oct 2026

   AI and the Public's Health: What History Can Teach Us

   Artificial intelligence may transform medicine through better diagnosis, prediction, and personalized treatments. But who benefits from these technologies, whose data trains them, and who bears the risks when they fail? In this episode, historian and public health scholar Merlin Chowkwanyun, PhD, MPH, explores AI through the lens of history, public health, environmental justice, and labor. Dr. Chowkwanyun is the Donald H. Gemson Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and is affiliated with Columbia's Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health, Data Science Institute, and Department of History. He shares his intellectual journey from an early interest in applied mathematics to a career in history and public health. As an undergraduate, he took a formative class with historian Eric Foner, a leading scholar of Reconstruction, race, slavery, and nineteenth-century American politics. The experience sparked his interest in using history to explore the "big-ticket" questions that shape our world and nation. Although he cautions that the past is not a roadmap for the future, Chowkwanyun draws thought-provoking parallels between today's enthusiasm for AI and the excitement surrounding Robert Koch's germ theory discoveries in 1882. While germ theory ultimately contributed to enormous improvements in health, he notes that these advances took decades to materialize. He also argues that the rise of germ theory shifted medicine and public health toward a narrower focus on disease-causing organisms, often at the expense of attention to housing, working conditions, and other social determinants of health. The conversation also explores how communities can help shape scientific and technological innovation. Chowkwanyun highlights bottom-up models in which communities partner with scientists to address local concerns, citing collaborations between WE ACT for Environmental Justice (https://weact.org/ (https://weact.org/)) and Columbia University as one example. Listen to learn more about Chowkwanyun's forthcoming book, his views on the proper role of public health in society, and his insights into how AI may reshape work, healthcare, and the future of public life. All Health Politics Is Local: Community Battles over Medical Care and Environmental Health (University of North Carolina Press) - https://uncpress.org/9781469667676/all-health-politics-is-local/ (https://uncpress.org/9781469667676/all-health-politics-is-local/) ToxicDocs (https://www.toxicdocs.org/) [ (https://www.toxicdocs.org/)toxicdocs.org (http://toxicdocs.org)] (https://www.toxicdocs.org/) NSF-funded project information: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2147334 (https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2147334) Toxicdocs.tools (http://Toxicdocs.tools) https://www.merlinc16.com/ (https://www.merlinc16.com/)

2. 

   28 Sept 2026

   New Directions in Bioethics with Dr. Elizabeth Lanphier

   Dr. Elizabeth Lanphier is a faculty member in the Ethics Center at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and is affiliated with the departments of pediatrics, philosophy, and women, gender, and sexuality studies at the University of Cincinnati. She is a philosopher and clinical ethicist whose work focuses on narrative, feminist, and trauma-informed approaches in bioethics. Dr. Lanphier shares definitions and applications of feminist and narrative approaches to bioethics and discusses her recently published book co-authored with Larry Churchill, Bioethical Responsibilities in Twenty-First Century Crises. This is a collection of essays arguing to expand the scope of Bioethics towards thinking about complex challenges to health and healthcare delivery for individuals, communities, institutions, and the planet. These essays reflect on the ways the field has changed and needs to continue to change in response to the impending climate disaster and the political, social and financial drivers of health. The conversation then shifts to Dr. Lanphier’s work on Trauma Informed Care and its application in clinical ethics. Trauma Informed Care is a framework that recognizes that trauma is common and impactful and uses guiding principals to reduce that impact including promoting physical and emotional safety, fostering trust and transparency, leveling hierarchies, engaging peer support, and attending to bias and exclusion. Dr. Lanphier and her colleagues have a long-term plan to incorporate Trauma Informed principles into clinical ethics consultation including conducting a baseline assessment, creating shared practices and definitions, designing and implementing training, and incorporating in established practice standards such as core competencies. Finally, Dr. Lanphier discusses how she applies her narrative, feminist and trauma-informed lenses to questions like implementation of universal social determinants of health screening in medical care. Lanphier, E., & Churchill, L. R. (Eds.). (2026). Bioethical Responsibilities in Twenty-First Century Crises. Bloomsbury Publishing: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/bioethical-responsibilities-in-twentyfirst-century-crises-9781978766372/ (https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/bioethical-responsibilities-in-twentyfirst-century-crises-9781978766372/) Lanphier E, Anani UE. Trauma Informed Ethics Consultation. Am J Bioeth. 2022 May;22(5):45-57: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33684027/ (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33684027/) Lanphier, E., & Duffee, J. (2025). Trauma-Informed Screening for Structural Drivers of Health. AMA Journal of Ethics, 27(9), E678-E685: https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/trauma-informed-screening-structural-drivers-health/2025-09 (https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/trauma-informed-screening-structural-drivers-health/2025-09) Lanphier, E. (2025). Reasoning from faith or fact. In Complex Ethics Consultations (pp. 35–40). Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/complex-ethics-consultations/reasoning-from-faith-or-fact/40525278932A893C2629810D1024BFAF (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/complex-ethics-consultations/reasoning-from-faith-or-fact/40525278932A893C2629810D1024BFAF)

3. 

   30 Jun 2026

   Disparities in Healthcare Delivery with Dr. Liz Chuang

   In this episode, Dr. Chuang discusses some of her research, which has focused on racial disparities in health care delivery. She shares her journey to this topic starting with her childhood experiences as a witness to structural racism and implicit bias. She discusses how bias and structural inequities are reproduced in many ways, all affecting health and healthcare outcomes. Her work includes several focuses including interpersonal bias in healthcare communication with patients with serious illness and their families, bias in public health practices and bias in Artificial Intelligence. The discussion concludes with the ways that biomedical research has contributed to bias in healthcare over time. The discussion also includes some ways that researchers can move forward even in a challenging funding environment. Chuang E, Hope AA, Allyn K, Szalkiewicz E, Gary B, Gong MN. Gaps in Provision of Primary and Specialty Palliative Care in the Acute Care Setting by Race and Ethnicity. J Pain Symptom Manage. 2017 Nov;54(5):645-653.e1. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28760524/) Chuang E, Yu S, Georgia A, Nymeyer J, Williams J. A Decade of Studying Drivers of Disparities in End-of-Life Care for Black Americans: Using the NIMHD Framework for Health Disparities Research to Map the Path Ahead. J Pain Symptom Manage. 2022 Jul;64(1):e43-e52 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35381316/). Chuang E, Grand-Clement J, Chen JT, Chan CW, Goyal V, Gong MN. Quantifying Utilitarian Outcomes to Inform Triage Ethics: Simulated Performance of a Ventilator Triage Protocol under Sars-CoV-2 Pandemic Surge Conditions. AJOB Empir Bioeth. 2022 Jul-Sep;13(3):196-204. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35435803/) Binkley CE, Dellavalle NS, Chuang E. From Mitigation to Flourishing: We Must Harness Emerging Technologies to Improve Health of the Most Vulnerable. Am J Bioeth. 2026 Feb;26(2):127-129. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41678677/) Cited in this episode: Barnato AE, Berhane Z, Weissfeld LA, Chang CC, Linde-Zwirble WT, Angus DC; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation ICU End-of-Life Peer Group. Racial variation in end-of-life intensive care use: a race or hospital effect? Health Serv Res. 2006 Dec;41(6):2219-37 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17116117/). Johnson KS, Kuchibhatla M, Payne R, Tulsky JA. Race and residence: intercounty variation in black-white differences in hospice use. J Pain Symptom Manage. 2013 Nov;46(5):681-90. doi: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2012.12.006. Epub 2013 Mar 21 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23522516/). Ashana DC, Welsh W, Preiss D, Sperling J, You H, Tu K, Carson SS, Hough C, White DB, Kerlin M, Docherty S, Johnson KS, Cox CE. Racial Differences in Shared Decision-Making About Critical Illness. JAMA Intern Med. 2024 Apr 1;184(4):424-432. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38407845/) Dellavalle NS, Ellis JR, Moore AA, Akerson M, Andazola M, Campbell EG, DeCamp M. What patients want from healthcare chatbots: insights from a mixed-methods study. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2025 Nov 1;32(11):1735-1745 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41051963/).

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Spotify

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5 ratings

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