with: Christine Mitchell

Overview

Prof Christine Mitchell is the Executive Director of the Center for Bioethics of Harvard Medical School. She founded the ethics program at Boston Children’s Hospital, directing the ethics consultation service and leading the Ethics Advisory Committee for thirty years. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in science from Boston University School of Nursing and a master’s degree from Harvard where she majored in philosophical and religious ethics as a Kennedy Fellow in Medical Ethics through the Interfaculty Program at Harvard Medical School, Harvard Divinity School and Harvard School of Public Health. She is also an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Nurses.

Masterclass
She came to Zurich to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Zurich at the Dies Academicus on April 29th, 2023 in recognition of her outstanding work in bioethics. After the ceremony, Professor Mitchell came to the IBME to lead a masterclass with PhD students and IBME Director Nikola Biller-Andorno. Tania Manríquez Roa, Anna Westermair, and Martin Gramc presented their current research projects and Prof Mitchell provided detailed feedback on their studies. The assistants had an insightful discussion on the topics presented: the value of self-experimentation as a research practice with the potential to benefit populations, the challenges faced by healthcare providers who treat patients suffering from severe anorexia nervosa,  and the impact of clinical ethics in multidisciplinary healthcare teams working on intersex care in Europe.