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Event Promotion: Wake Up Winston – Advocate Day and Open Mic Night

Safe Zone in Medicine at Wake Forest School of Medicine and the Offices of Inclusion and Diversity and Student Inclusion and Diversity at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center cordially invite you to participate on Friday October 6, 2017 in our Wake Up Winston Advocate Day and Open Mic Night featuring Donovan Livingston as MC. 

This event will serve as a community celebration of diversity and inclusion and unite advocates and allies. This event will give our community members space to express their experiences and feelings through a variety of artistic expressions AND empower advocates and allies to show their solidarity. We are inviting you to participate in this community event. This is an open mic night with the goal of providing a safe space to both celebrate diversity, inclusion, and equity, as well as engage in constructive dialogue, provide awareness, and connect with each other to rise above experiences of injustice and inequity both in medicine and in the world around us.

Continue reading “Event Promotion: Wake Up Winston – Advocate Day and Open Mic Night”

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2105: A Designer Baby Odyssey

By: Laura Browder, Associate Attorney at Wyatt Early Harris Wheeler LLP

Celeste was yanked out of a dreamless sleep by a sudden wave of vibrations traveling up her left wrist. Fumbling with the sleek ceramic face of the watch – if it could even be called a watch, with its time-telling ability often overshadowed by its myriad other capabilities – she managed to align her right index finger on the screen with the surgical-like precision that the device seemed to require. The vibrations stopped, only to be replaced by the shrill voice of Isabelle Hall, her crisis-prone assistant.   Continue reading “2105: A Designer Baby Odyssey”

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The Keeping of Cancer

By: Mary Taylor Mann, Ph.D. Student at Emory University

In September 2014, Cassandra C. was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In re Cassandra C., 316 Conn. 476, 112 A.3d 158 (2015). For the next two months, multiple pediatric and oncology specialists urged Cassandra and her mother to begin chemotherapy treatment for Cassandra’s cancer. All physicians agreed that, with immediate treatment, Cassandra would have a high likelihood of cure. Without treatment, however, the cancer would inevitably lead to Cassandra’s death. Cassandra and her mother were skeptical of the effectiveness of chemotherapy treatments and feared the anticipated harmful side effects of long-term cancer treatments. Cassandra wanted to explore alternative therapy treatments. She did research and learned of other Hodgkin’s lymphoma patients who were successfully treating their cancer with natural therapies. Continue reading “The Keeping of Cancer”

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Pieces of My Memories: A Poem to Alzheimer’s

By: Alyea Pierce, Assistant Director at Rutgers University

Alyea Pierce is an author, public speaking and poetry coach, and performer. She is the Assistant Director for Department of Leadership and Experiential Learning at Rutgers University. She describes her purpose with spoken word as one to provide a voice for the unheard – those silenced in some way. In her work, she strives to tell stories as truthfully as possible, whether in describing experiences with race, gender, cancer, autism, or Alzheimer’s. In this TEDx talk in Huntsville, Alabama, Alyea shares a spoken word piece about overcoming the challenges of Alzheimer’s within her family. Continue reading “Pieces of My Memories: A Poem to Alzheimer’s”

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Better Babies: A Commentary on Modern Eugenics with the History of Virginia

Paco, Abiad.JPGBy: Paco Abiad, B.A. Global Public Health student at University of Virginia

I could feel it again – my mother’s gaze examining me as we sat at the coffee table. I had just updated her on my current medical status: my ongoing battle against the deadly duo of severe allergies and ever present eczema. I often joke of my unfortunate circumstances, but the one person who will never take my health lightly is my mom. She finally broke the awkward silence between us: “You know I’m so hard on you about your health because I feel guilty, right? I see you suffering and I feel responsible because I gave you bad genes.” Continue reading “Better Babies: A Commentary on Modern Eugenics with the History of Virginia”

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Environmental Federalism and the Protection and Preservation of Florida’s Coral Reefs

By: Charlee Fox, federal judicial clerk for the United States Court of Appeals

This commentary is an excerpt of a longer paper written for an environmental law course. 

Ten percent of the world’s coral reefs, including those found in Florida, have been destroyed beyond restoration.[1] It was estimated in 2000 that thirty percent of the world’s reefs were in critical condition.[2] Causes of corral reef depletion include: pollution, over-fishing and over-exploitation of resources, destructive fishing practices (e.g. dynamite fishing), dredging and shoreline modification (e.g. coastal development), vessel groundings and anchoring, disease outbreaks, and global climate change causing effects such as bleaching and mortality.[3] The coral reefs are protected by both state and federal regulations. Thus, it is relevant to analyze whether state regulations or environmental federalism have a greater impact on the conservation and protection of the United States coral reefs. Continue reading “Environmental Federalism and the Protection and Preservation of Florida’s Coral Reefs”

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Cross-Cultural Bioethics: Ethical Foundations in a Globalizing World

By: Will Naso, B.A. student at Davidson College and Vann Fellow at Mayo Clinic

As the advent of new technologies shrinks the world, cross-cultural interaction is guaranteed in modern society. Within the world of medicine, physicians are becoming more globally aware, whether through the growing medical tourism industry, the popularity of international education, or the mixing of cultures due to increased global migration [1, 2]. What does this mean for the development of a globalized bioethics? As bioethical research has evolved, the flow of knowledge has steadily moved from developed nations to developing, or more basically, from the ‘West’ to the ‘East [2]. Continue reading “Cross-Cultural Bioethics: Ethical Foundations in a Globalizing World”

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Categorizing Christian Perspectives on Capital Punishment

By: Hannah Sikes, M.Div student at Princeton Theological Seminary

The debate on capital punishment reaches across religious, political, and social barriers. In the secular sphere, both advocates for capital punishment and abolitionists fiercely argue over the legitimacy and the practicality of state employment of the death penalty.

Continue reading “Categorizing Christian Perspectives on Capital Punishment”

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Should Pediatricians Disclose Sensitive Information About Minors’ Health To Their Parents?

By: Adam Hunter, MD student at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

In the American medical system, full moral status is assigned to competent adults. Beauchamp and Childress’s ethical principles of beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, and respect for autonomy define how competent patients should be treated (1). A case illustration helps to demonstrate the principles at conflict in disclosing sensitive information of minors. Continue reading “Should Pediatricians Disclose Sensitive Information About Minors’ Health To Their Parents?”

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Without License

By: Alysia Yi, Graduate of Wake Forest University School of Law

Alysia Yi is featured in our Author Spotlight section. You can read her interview about this piece here.

Photo by John Hammond

Part I. The Way It Was

1958, Seoul, South Korea

A woman lay on her bed, silently staring at the ceiling of a tiny master bedroom. She’s wearing a dress, her legs open and stretched out, immobile. Blood stains the old white sheets from the waist down. She looks at least ten years older than her young age of twenty-five, a kind of hard aging that has befallen those who’ve lived through war. The kind of aging that did not draw attention in a country thoroughly afflicted with grief. A single tear falls down her face as she stares blankly into space, her stoicism gratefully masking her sorrow of yet another loved one lost. There was no war to blame for this one though. Continue reading “Without License”