Newswise — From stem cell research and its much-debated potential to cure devastating diseases to the burgeoning use of Internet searches to find living organ donors, doctors, nurses, researchers, ethicists and the public are being challenged to answer increasingly complex questions about health care. Health care is being transformed by advances in biomedical research and information technology, and the answers to many questions posed today will shape tomorrow's treatments and the moral ties that bind us.
At the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center, a step has been taken in the direction of helping society discuss and seek answers to these and many other complex health care questions. Construction has begun on a new $5.6 million center for the study of ethics and humanities in health care on the UCDHSC Fitzsimons campus in Aurora. The planned Fulginiti Pavilion for Ethics and Humanities, slated to open in summer 2007, will be a one-of-a-kind gathering place and interactive educational center.
The building will house the UCDHSC Center for Bioethics and Humanities, whose core mission is promoting ethical, just and humane health care and serving as a source of knowledge in bioethics and humanities for the people of Colorado and the entire Rocky Mountain Region.
"Our new home will afford us the setting we've envisioned for years. It will enable us to bring large, diverse groups of people together to engage in discussions and problem solving of moral issues in health care," said Mark Yarborough, PhD, associate professor of bioethics at the CU School of Medicine and director of the CU Center for Bioethics and Humanities. "This gathering place was intended, from the very outset, to be a gift to the people of Colorado, to provide our citizens with a new resource and a place to address contentious issues and search for meaningful resolutions."
The 10,000-square-foot bioethics pavilion, which is being built entirely by private donations, promises to be a unique national resource and a landmark on the expanding Fitzsimons campus, one of the nation's premier health sciences centers for the 21st century. Among other architectural details, the center will feature a high-tech amphitheatre/forum, educational art galleries, conference rooms, and a video/Internet gallery for interactive exhibits.
The in-the-round amphitheatre was designed to enable open and robust dialogue, and is expected to attract a broad cross section of the public to work with academic leaders and other professionals during conferences, summits and other local and national events.
Among the issues that could be addressed at the new bioethics center: Should there be limits placed on efforts to extend the human life span? How can death best be choreographed at the end of life? What limits, if any, should society set on reproductive breakthroughs? Millions of Americans are uninsured: Can U.S. society address this crisis and ensure more equitable access to health care?
The University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center is one of three campuses in the University of Colorado system. Located in Denver and Aurora, Colo., the center includes schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and dentistry, a graduate school and a teaching hospital. For more information, visit the Web site at http://www.uchsc.edu.
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