Integrity in the Concept and Determination of Brain Death: Recent Challenges in Medicine, Law, and Ethics

Held February 27-28, 2025, Columbus School of Law, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC.

Organized by The National Catholic Bioethics Center, The Center for Law and the Human Person at The Catholic University of America, and The Edmund D. Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University 

This Symposium―organized after the issuance of updated guidelines by the American Academy of Neurology et al. in October 2023 following an unsuccessful effort to revise the Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA)―covered several key topics:

  • Session 1: The validity of the concept of brain death; that is, how/can we ensure, with moral certitude, that patients determined to be dead by neurologic criteria are dead according to the standards of a sound Christian anthropology?

  • Session 2: Do the 2023 AAN et al. Guidelines accurately and reliably guide physicians to determine brain death?; how/can testing protocols for brain death be improved to accurately, consistently, and efficiently identify which patients are dead by neurologic criteria and which are not?

  • Session 3: Key related ethical issues, including (A) whether apnea testing is subject to informed consent; (B) what ethical challenges and opportunities exist for nurses involved in caring for patients near or after a determination of brain death; and (C) the validity of conscientious objection to determination of brain death by individuals and institutions.

  • Session 4: Issues in Law and Regulation, including the current status of state laws on the determination of brain death.

  • Session 5: Dialogue and Discussion: Is there currently common ground on issues in Sessions 1 and 2? If not, can find common ground be found, and how? For issues in Session 3, are improvements in hospital policies, protocols, and educational programs needed? If so, what would constitute improvements and who will supply them? For issues in Session 4, what improvements in law, regulation, or legal advocacy will best protect all of the profound moral goods at stake in this area?

The Symposium was designed to consider different points of view fairly, to foster robust dialogue among speakers, and to achieve practical results.

 

Videos of symposium presentation are available to NCBC members.

 
 
 

For more information about the event, click this link — https://braindeathintegritysymposium.com