CHA has contracted with bioethicist Fr. Kevin FitzGerald, SJ, to provide consultations to CHA members, contribute to publications of the association, participate in its programs, provide his expertise to its board of trustees and support its ethics staff.
Fr. FitzGerald is the Dr. David P. Lauler Chair for Catholic Health Care Ethics at the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University Medical Center, where he is a research associate professor in the department of oncology. He holds doctorates in bioethics and in molecular biology from Georgetown, and a master of divinity from the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, Calif. He is a consultor to the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Culture and a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life. He has written, presented and consulted extensively in the U.S. on a wide variety of bioethical topics.
Sr. Patricia Talone, RSM, is CHA vice president of mission services. She said CHA is making Fr. FitzGerald's expertise available to CHA members because "we have some Catholic hospitals in our membership doing some very advanced work in areas including cancer therapy and obstetrics," and they could benefit from having access to a bioethicist with deep expertise in genetics.
CHA's contract with Fr. FitzGerald also will support his efforts to help create a master's program in Catholic clinical ethics. The work is through a partnership between Georgetown's Pellegrino Center and the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
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