Avraham Steinberg, M.D.

Portland’s First Annual Jewish Medical Ethics Conference

By DEBORAH MOON

article created on: 2008-12-01T00:00:00

Organ donation and moment of death, which are intimately related, are the focus of what organizers hope will become an annual lecture on Jewish medical ethics.

On Dec. 16, the Maimonides Society of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland and the Portland Kollel present the inaugural Jewish Medical Ethics Lecture featuring Avraham Steinberg, M.D., and the Rev. John Tuohey, Ph.D. The two will reflect on “Practical Insights from a Jewish and Catholic Perspective in Bioethics Defining the Moment of Death and the Transplantation of Organs from Jewish and Catholic Perspectives.”

The moment of death and organ donation are intrinsically linked because, according to Kollel’s Rabbi Tzvi Fischer, “A mitzvah like respect for the human body would be put aside to save a life. The struggle is identifying the moment of death, because you can’t ‘kill’ even a dying person, in order to save another.”

Dr. Howard Lazarus, former chair of the Maimonides Society, Kollel Rabbi Chanan Spivak and Dr. Bob Mullen have spent the past year to create this first medical ethics lecture.
Lazarus said that getting Steinberg to speak at the inaugural program was a real coup since “he wrote the definitive work on Jewish medical ethics.”

In 1999, Dr. Steinberg was awarded the Israel Prize, the most highly regarded award in Israel, for his Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics. he is the director of The Center for Medical Ethics, Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem. He is a practicing pediatric neurologist at Shaare Zedek Medical Center, where he formerly directed the Schlesinger Institute for Medical-Halachic Research.

“We wanted to find ways to complement him,” said Lazarus, noting he’s worked with Tuohey at Providence-St. Vincent for a number of years. He said that he worked on a program at which Tuohey spoke at about the ethics surrounding Terri Schiavo and when medical care could be discontinued for a person in a long-term vegetative state.

Tuoheyis director of the Providence Center for Health Care Ethics, and holds the center’s endowed chair in Applied Health Care Ethics. His role as chair includes working with the Internal Medicine and Family Practice Residency Programs for ethics education, as well as providing clinical ethics consultation in the system’s Oregon hospitals. The Ethics Center also provides education in ethics, cultural competency in end-of-life care, as well as in palliative medicine for residents, physicians and health care staff.

Lazarus said as a critical care physician he thinks the program will provide fascinating insights to help doctors such as himself consider organ donation and how he feels about it “as a clinician and as a Jew in a Catholic hospital.”

Spivak said that the lecture will also consider the different trends on how to view these issues in America as opposed to Israel.

“Besides our usual interests in promoting Jewish learning, medical ethics deal with some of the most thought provoking issues in Jewish philosophy and law,” said Spivak. “It is a topic that needs constant attention due the sensitivities of the issues and the constant advancement of technology.”

The Portland Kollel was formed as a means to help build a vibrant Jewish community. It strives to unite the Portland Jewish community through social activities, education, and spirituality based on traditional Jewish values.

The Maimonides Society of the JFGP is committed to providing social, educational, philanthropic and networking opportunities for all allied healthcare professionals. The society is named after famed Jewish scholar and physician Maimonides.

The program begins at 6 p.m. with a cocktail hour for sponsors ($100 per person includes hosted cocktail hour dinner and lecture) followed at 7 p.m. by dinner and lecture ($45 if paid by Dec. 8; $55 after). For more info contact Jen Feldman at jen@jewishportland.org or 503-245-6449 or Kollel at info@portlandkollel.org or 503-245-5420.

As part of JFGP’s effort to go “green,” the Maimonides Society no longer sends out paper invitations. All invitations are email only. Health care professionals wanting to be added to the email list should contact Feldman at the above number or by email to jen@jewishportland.org.