Public Lectures
Each year there is one publicly offered Augustine College evening
course. Since the summer of 2002 we have also offered week-long
summer conferences for the doctors and dentists of
CMDA and CMDS.
Summer Conference |
The Roots of Modern Medicine
The idea for this conference series arose from the need to know the
big picture of Western history: the rise of Christendom; its flowering;
and its continuing impact on the present. The conferences focus on
the point where medicine intersects this history. Augustine College
can offer this kind of conference, because its curriculum has been
designed precisely to teach the big picture of Western history.
Due to the involvement of Dr. John Patrick in lecturing for the CMDA
and the CMDS, we have geared the conferences towards the doctors and
dentists belonging to these organizations, who have commented on a
need to supplement their education in the liberal arts. Although the
conferences have been specifically designed for those of the CMDA
and CMDS, we welcome other medical professionals, students, and residents.
General Module Content
The modules deal with various points of intersection between the
theory and practice of medicine and the ethics, politics, philosophy,
theology, literature and art in different historical periods. They
explore the processes in which the Humanities have not only defined
foundational notions of human nature and purpose operative in medical
practice, but were also instrumental in the development of the modern
ethos.
Past Conferences:
Module VII | 20th Century: Technology and Life
(June 1-7, 2008)
Technology, that child of modern science, which, in turn, is a child
of modern metaphysics, is out of humanity's control, has ceased to
serve us, and compelled us to participate in the preparation of our
destruction. Furthermore, humanity can find no way out: we have no
reasonable idea, no visible faith, and even less of a political solution
to help bring things back under human control. We look on helplessly
as that heartless machine that we have created inevitably engulfs
us, tearing us away from our natural affiliations, just as it removes
us from the experience of Being and casts us into the world of "Existences".
Václav Havel, Open Letters, p. 206.
Although Havel was writing about living in the Marxist system, he
was well aware that his ideas apply to Western democracy too in a
more subtle way; certainly the "Health Care Industry" exemplifies
the same problems.
In this conference we will be looking at the rise of applied science
particularly in medicine as part of the overall, stunning growth of
scientific knowledge. "Scientism" also appears and the word
"science" is inappropriately used to describe Marxism, for
example, as scientific socialism. Our ethics, our literature and our
arts show the same consequences of replacing God with rationalism
and individualism. Only in physics is a less mechanistic understanding
beginning to appear.
Programme
Each day two lectures are given. There is a chance for attendees
to work in smaller groups, and ample time for question and answer;
the attendees are free to pursue with the professor particular issues
of interest and discussions which arise during the day. The conferences
are one week long. The week-end preceding and following the conference
can be used to visit Ottawa or surrounding areas. An early-bird worship
service and pre-registration is also offered on the Sunday prior to
the conference.
Where:
 The
lectures are held at Augustine College, which is located at 18 Blackburn,
Ottawa, ON. Attendees are expected to make their own accommodation
arrangements. For help on this please check the Life
in Ottawa page
How Much (Fees):
- Attendees: $800
- Spouses, only if attending course: half price
- Do not let cost be an impediment. Partial sponsorship may be available.
Application:
We are accepting applications for June 1-7, 2007.
Accreditation 2007
 This
activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential
Areas and Policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical
Education (ACCME) through the joint sponsorship of the Christian Medical
& Dental Associations (CMDA), and the Augustine College. CMDA
is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education
for physicians.
The Christian Medical Association designates this educational activity
for a maximum of 22.5 hours in category 1 credit toward the AMA Physician's
Recognition Award. Each physician should claim only those hours of
credit that he/she actually spent in the educational activity.
Accreditation 2006
This
activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential
Areas and Policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical
Education (ACCME) through the joint sponsorship of the Christian Medical
& Dental Associations (CMDA), and the Augustine College. CMDA
is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education
for physicians.
 The
Christian Medical Association designates this educational activity
for a maximum of 22.5 hours in category 1 credit toward the AMA Physician's
Recognition Award. Each physician should claim only those hours of
credit that he/she actually spent in the educational activity.
The Christian Dental Association is designated as an Approved PACE
Program Provider by the Academy of General Dentistry. The formal continuing
education programs of this program provider are accepted by AGD for
fellowship, mastership, and membership maintenance credit. Approval
does not imply acceptance by a state or provincial board of dentistry.
The current term of approval extends from 11/03/02 to 12/31/06.
Accreditation 2005
"This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance
with the Essential Areas and Policies of the Accreditation Council
for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint sponsorship
of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA), and Augustine
College. CMDA is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical
education for physicians.
The Christian Medical Association designates this educational activity
for a maximum of 18 hours in category 1 credit toward the AMA Physician's
Recognition Award. Each physician should claim only those hours of
credit that he/she actually spent in the educational activity.
The Christian Dental Association is designated as an Approved PACE
Program Provider by the Academy of General Dentistry. The formal continuing
education programs of this program provider are accepted by AGD for
fellowship, mastership, and membership maintenance credit. Approval
does not imply acceptance by a state or provincial board of dentistry.
The current term of approval extends from 11/03/02 to 12/31/06."
Individual Lecture Abstracts
Mark Whittall | Quantum Physics: Reasons for Humility in Science
This lecture will provide a brief overview of the quantum physics
revolution of the 20th century. We will begin with the
experimental background of black box radiation and the photoelectric
effect and then look at the key theoretical formulations of the physics
of the sub-atomic world: wave-particle duality, the uncertainty principle,
wave functions and renormalization. The picture of the sub-atomic
world that emerges is radically different from our common sense understanding
of the everyday world around us. We’ll examine the conceptual framework
that emerges from quantum physics and consider how embracing this
framework might affect the understanding and practice of medicine.
Educational Objectives
Participants will:
- Receive a basic overview of quantum physics
- Examine the radically different understanding of the universe
and the conceptual framework that emerges from quantum physics
- Assess how this new perspective might impact our understanding
and practice of medicine.
Reading
Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe, (New York: Vintage
Books, 1999), Part I and II. (Part II provides an entertaining overview
of relativity and quantum physics).
Gary Zukav, The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New
Physics, (Toronto: Bantam Books, 1979)
Ed Bloedow | Marxism: The Destruction of the Patient
Karl Marx: A historical background to his life and times, and
to his philosophy. We shall show how his ideology took hold, most
particularly amongst intellectuals, and how it spread globally.
We shall also show how it affected all aspects of life, most particularly
social life and health.
Educational Objectives
Participants will:
- Learn how political ideologies can have an impact on medicine.
- Learn how the political elite have been responsible for much of
the modern practice of medicine.
- Learn how a failure to appreciate and respond appropriately to
these subtle realities can destroy whole branches of medicine, eg.
psychiatry in Russia.
Reading
D. McLellan, Karl Marx: His Life and Thought (1973).
Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism (NY 2007) (Doubleday).
John Patrick | The Technology Imperative & the Problem of
Depersonalization
In the ancient world techniques (art) and knowledge (science) were
separate. Science was not about power or control. The word technology
brings power and control together; Descartes and Bacon had intuitions
about what would happen. The hope in science was for human progress
and betterment and with vaccines, antibiotics, advanced surgery, etc.
this has happened. But some techniques, including medical ones, were
abused in the 20th Century by the Nazis, the Marxists and
others. It can be argued that the medical profession in the West is
also abusing its power, sometimes willingly, sometimes driven by political
agendas. This story will be told so that physicians can be more aware
of the potential abuses that lie in embryo in the new techniques,
especially molecular biological ones.
Educational Objectives
Participants will:
a. Understand the distinctly
different mindsets of the technician and the scientist.
b. Learn that technological progress
is not morally neutral. It changes our self-understanding.
c. Learn how ‘the machine’ metaphor
for understanding a sick body, though effective, may result in the
loss of the person.
d. Appreciate that, although science
purports to be uninterested in purpose, medicine is actually directed
towards the good of the patient.
Reading
Ellul, The Technological Society (1964)
George Grant, Technology and Justice (1986)
Greg Bloomquist | Reality & Mystery In the Suffering Patient
Technology and Time: The modern technological context within which
we work has arisen in conjunction with the rise of modern thinking
about time. The strengths of the modern approach to time, and the
weaknesses, are revealed in the strengths and weaknesses of technology,
including medical research and practice. This session explores the
implications of the modern view of time for our technological thinking
and considers alternatives being suggested in light of both post-modern
objections to modernism and the unexplored riches in classical thought
which have been missed by moderns. (I will focus on ways in which
theological and biblical study reflect the ongoing debates.)
Educational Objectives
Participants will:
- Become acquainted with ancient understandings of time.
- See how these views would help physicians and patients understand
and accept incurable illness.
- Learn how to connect patients to their social past so that social
networks can bear more of the burden of illness.
Bibliography
Dix, G. (1983). The shape of the liturgy. (P. V. Marshall, additional
notes by). New York: Seabury Press. (Original work published 1945)
See especially chapter 11, "The Sanctification of Time"
Zerubavel, E. (1979). Patterns of time in hospital life a sociological
perspective. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Zerubavel, E. (1981). Hidden rhythms: Schedules and calendars in
social life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Zerubavel, E. (1991). The fine line: Making distinctions in everyday
life. New York: Free Press.
Zerubavel, E. (1996). Social memories: Steps to a sociology of the
past. Qualitative sociology, 19(3), 283-299.
Zerubavel, E. (1997). Social mindscapes: An invitation to cognitive
sociology. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Zerubavel, E. (2003). Time maps: Collective memory and the social
shape of the past. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Graeme Hunter | Utilitarianism and Medicine
Simultaneously Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University
Center for Human Values, and Laureate Professor, University of Melbourne
Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Peter Singer is one
of the foremost ethicists in the world and probably the most notorious.
It is an understatement to call his ethical views controversial.
He is famous for thinking that it is ok to have sexual relations with
animals but wrong to eat them, and that it may be ok to kill severely
retarded children in the course of using them for scientific experimentation.
We will look at why he holds these views and how physicians who are
orthodox Christians can respond to them.
Educational Objectives
Participants will:
a. Become familiar with the implications of
utilitarianism in medical practice
b. Understand the reasons for Peter Singer’s ethics
c. Recognize the moral and philosophical weaknesses
of both approaches in medicine
Reading
Peter Singer: Practical
Ethics, 2nd Ed., Cambridge: CUP, 1993.
Graeme Hunter | A Thinking Man’s Orthodoxy: G.K. Chesterton
“All modern philosophies are chains which connect and fetter; Christianity
is a sword which separates and sets free,” says G.K. Chesterton in
his great apologetic work, Orthodoxy. In this evening lecture I shall
take Orthodoxy as my guide and use it to defend the reasonableness
of Christianity in general, not just in ethical questions. I shall
try to show how orthodox Christians can argue in a way that will be
plausible to reflective secular people? Inspired by Orthodoxy, we
shall compare secular and Christian responses to rationalism, materialism,
naturalism, determinism, Freudianism, autonomy, utopianism and other
modern follies.
Educational Objectives
Participants will:
a. Be able to use critical thinking
in medical practice
b. See medico-ethical questions
in the setting of wider strategies of argument
Reading
G.K. Chesterton: Orthodoxy
D. Manganiello| Ministering to a Mind Diseased I: The Maniac
in Dostoevsky
“Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?” asked Shakespeare’s
incredulous Macbeth (Macbeth, V.iii.40) of a certified doctor who
was unable to treat his wife after she showed symptoms of moral guilt.
The unsettling question has continued to haunt the modern literary
imagination. The protagonist of the novel, Crime and Punishment (1865),
plans a murder on the basis of what one commentator calls a “rational
Utilitarian calculus.” Dostoevsky probes different reductionist philosophies
in this classic text, and offers an incisive critique of Nietsczhsean
nihilism ‘avant la lettre’.
Educational Objectives
Participants will
a. See the adverse effects that
reductionist philosophies such as utilitarianism and nihilism have
on human beings, as dramatized in great works of literature.
b. Assess the negative impact that
such philosophies have on the practice of medicine.
Reading
F. Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment (1865)
A.D. Nuttall, Crime and Punishment: Murder as Philosophic Experiment
D. Manganiello | Ministering to a Mind Diseased II: The Maniac
in Chesterton
Chesterton’s Manalive (1912) is a delightful story that exposes
what Chesterton described in Orthodoxy as “the suicide of [modern]
thought.” In both instances the authors prescribe a “creed of wonder”
founded on an Ageless Story as an antidote to the malady of madness
in the age of positivism.
Educational Objectives
Participants will
a. See the dignity of the human
person dramatized in this great work of literature.
b. Assess the positive impact that
the vision of the whole person has on the practice of medicine.
Reading
G.K. Chesterton, Manalive (1912)
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Ian Boyd, The Novels of G.K. Chesterton
John Patrick | Medical Ethics 2008
This session will be interactive in the form of a Socratic dialogue,
thus allowing the participants to integrate their own experiences
and interactions with modern technologies within particular ethical
frameworks. Following MacIntyre’s lead we will commence by demonstrating
the lack of ethical consensus in their own workplaces because of the
lack of shared moral premises. We will then discuss how differences
can be shown to stem from this problem and that the only rational,
civilized solution is to attempt to persuade using outcome analyses.
Where agreement is impossible, the solution will be seen to be to
respect each person’s rights of conscience.
Educational Objectives
Participants will:
a. Understand the current debate
about embryonic stem cells and the potential technical escape from
ethical stress.
b. Recognize the appropriate involvement
of spiritual understanding, particularly with self-induced diseases.
c. Understand the issues at stake
in the debate over the physician’s rights of conscience.
Evening Lectures
Each year Augustine College offers one public lecture series. Sometimes
this series is a part of the core curriculum and other times it is
additional to it. This year we will offer lectures on a semi-regular
basis. Our first this year is by Mr. Michael O'Brien.
Public lecture by Michael O'Brien, artist, novelist, essayist.
Author of Sophia House, A Cry of Stone, and the series Children of
the Last Days, which includes Father Elijah and the trilogy Strangers
and Sojourners, Plague Journal, and Eclipse of the Sun.
- The Christian Writer in an Age of Unbelief
- Saturday, 1 October 2005, at 7:30 pm
- Church of St. Barnabas, 394 Kent Street, Ottawa
Past course topics have included:
- 1997 Jesus and the Gospels
- 1998 The Apostle Paul and Biblical Archaeology
- 1998 Greek and Roman Civilization
- 1999 A Survey of Church History
- 1999-2000 Art and Theology in the Christian West
- 2000-2001 History of Mathematics
- 2001-2002 Philosophical and Literary Classics
- 2002-2003 Faith and Culture
- 2003-2004 A Taste of Augustine
- 2004-2005 Literature: Representations of Life
|
