Edward Hundert speaking at the symposium as George Q. Daley (rear, left) and Nile and Tenley Albright (rear, center) look on. Image: Suzanne Camarata
Edward Hundert speaking at the symposium as George Q. Daley (rear, left) and Nile and Tenley Albright (rear, center) look on. Image: Suzanne Camarata
How can doctors provide high-quality, compassionate care to patients in low-resource settings despite technical and financial obstacles?
Could genetic technology soon enable human eggs and sperm to be grown from scratch in a dish? How can stem cell researchers and the general public establish ethical guidelines before such advances occur?
Can imminent shifts in pedagogy at Harvard Medical School ensure that HMS continues to produce doctors and scientists who are humanists and leaders as well as lifelong learners?
Against a backdrop of rapid changes in medical research and practice, bioethics was the theme of the 2015 Hollis L. Albright, MD ’31 Symposium in the Joseph B. Martin Conference Center at HMS on March 4.
Titled “The Future of Medicine, Science and Technology,” the 14th annual Albright Symposium featured two keynote speakers and the presentation of the 2015 Albright Scholar Award to HMS medical student Shekinah Elmore ’15.
HMS Dean Jeffrey S. Flier opened the symposium by celebrating the event’s “tremendous tradition” of excellent speakers, and also by expressing the pleasure and pride he felt in honoring a current HMS student.
“These students over time also become tremendous contributors,” he said.
“It’s such an exciting time in medicine,” added Tenley Albright, HMS lecturer on surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, citing the mix of medicine, science and technology that is driving prevention and early diagnosis and is empowering people to take charge of their own health.
“Everyone here is an advocate for change,” she said. “Also, I’m happy to see some students and recent students, because you’re the ones who are the change agents and who are going to be the future of medicine.”
Albright established the symposium with her brother, Nile Albright, in honor of their father, Hollis.
At this year’s symposium, Nile Albright reminisced about Hollis’ sense of humor and about how his father was asked to leave dental school because his professors felt his talents might be a better fit for medical school.
Putting the patient at the center of medicine
Shekinah Elmore survived cancer at age 7; later, in her teens; and again two weeks before arriving at HMS.
Her experience as both a patient and a medical student led her to write and speak about the importance of empathy in medical training. Her work has appeared in JAMA, PLOS One and BMJ’s “Medical Humanities” blog.
In addition to advocating for more compassionate cancer care, Elmore is dedicated to social justice and global health equity. Her interests have taken her to Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda and Uganda, where she has conducted award-winning research in such areas as palliative care and the provision of radiotherapy in resource-challenged environments.
Inequities exist at home as well, and Elmore has worked to improve quality of life for cancer patients and to better integrate compassionate care into medical training in the Boston area and across the U.S.
In these ways and more, Elmore embodies Hollis Albright’s belief that the patient should be at the center of medical practice, said George Q. Daley, the Samuel E. Lux, IV Professor of Hematology/Oncology at Boston Children’s Hospital and professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology and pediatrics at HMS, as well as moderator of the symposium.
“I think you’ll agree this is a remarkable young person, whose life to date is really an inspiration to us all and who offers tremendous promise for the future,” he said.
Elmore was unable to attend the symposium because she was working in Rwanda. She delivered a thank-you message by video.
“I’m luckier than many, but certainly not more deserving,” she said. “I want to pay forward the advantages and access I’ve had.”
Anthony D’Amico, professor of radiation oncology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a master of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Society at HMS, accepted the award on Elmore’s behalf.
The times are a-changin’
Daley then delivered his keynote address about new technologies and recent challenges in genetic research that are “changing medicine and maybe even the future of humanity.”
From advances such as gene therapy, which took 30 years to move from conception to integration in clinical practice, to recent techniques such as the gene editing tool CRISPR, which is sweeping the field with breathtaking pace, Daley laid out examples of current and breaking genetic advances.
He discussed the potential benefits of each—as well as the potential ethical pitfalls.
“Where do we draw the line between curing disease and enhancing traits?” he asked. “What are the permissible and impermissible applications of these technologies?”
Although the stem cell research community does an excellent job of self-policing to ensure that technologies are used in responsible ways, Daley said, there are edge-dwellers and entrepreneurs who are already pushing ahead of what society and health care policymakers have determined are safe and ethical.
Addressing these questions “requires the responsibility of physicians. Most don’t know what’s coming at them or how to advise their patients,” he said. “It also requires the responsibility of our medical faculty to keep abreast of these developments and be the standard bearers of the new knowledge.”
HMS Dean for Medical Education Edward Hundert followed Daley with a keynote speech about the changing curriculum at HMS and its emphasis on creating lifelong learners who will be able to keep pace with rapid innovation and handle accompanying ethical issues responsibly and with great compassion for patients.
Nurturing students as they continue down that path requires innovative thinking and a willingness to form personal connections, said Hundert, the Daniel D. Federman, MD Professor in Residence of Global Health and Social Medicine and Medical Education.
“You have to teach your students as if you might be teaching your own doctor,” he said.
“If you want to create a curriculum and an environment that are capable of preparing the physician-scientist-humanist leaders for the next century to handle the changes in science and technology, it’s not even about the syllabus,” he said. “It’s about the relationship between the learner and the teacher.
“When you create that transformative environment, the great thing about it is that it doesn’t just transform the students. It transforms us—the faculty. And that’s the greatest excitement of all,” Hundert said.
