Boundaries: The Ninth Annual Northwestern Bioethics and Medical Humanities Conference
Monday, April 13, 2026
Save the Date
The Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities and the Medical Humanities & Bioethics Graduate Program are excited to announce this one-day conference dedicated to engaging the Northwestern and Chicagoland community in the rich, multidisciplinary research and scholarship of our field.
Call for Proposals
We are seeking proposals for short, in-person presentations, and invite submissions from health care providers, fellows, faculty, medical students, and graduate students or alumni who have ties to Northwestern University or other medical centers and academic institutions.
We welcome broad and even unexpected interpretations of the theme. Proposals on other topics related to bioethics or medical humanities that are not directly tied to the theme may be submitted; however, adherence to the theme will be considered in the selection process. Current students, alumni and affiliates of the Center are encouraged to submit.
Conference Theme: BoundariesBoundaries are often created to mark the edge or extent of an area, to define where one thing stops and another begins, to mark the limits of things like places, disciplines, personal space, or behaviors. Boundaries are often negotiable. The field of bioethics has grown in part because people, technologies, and healthcare systems tend to push boundaries and sometimes redefine them. Both bioethics and medical humanities turn to multiple disciplines (like anthropology, literature, history, law) to explore where boundaries are, where they ought to be, and how they could or should be changed. Which existing boundaries in healthcare ought to be reconsidered and which reinforced? How do new technologies or medical innovations raise ethical questions that may prompt the need to reevaluate boundaries? What is the effect of resisting or ignoring existing boundaries? What can clinicians, researchers, ethicists, patients, and communities do to ensure that boundaries, and the multiple territories they attempt to demarcate, contribute to the betterment of health and wellness? What are our responsibilities to maintain or break them? |
The submission deadline is Monday, December 15, 2025.
Venue
Baldwin Auditorium in the Lurie Research Building (not to be confused with the nearby Lurie Children’s Hospital). 303 E Superior St, Chicago, IL
Past Conferences
(Re)Centering
The Eighth Annual Northwestern Bioethics & Medical Humanities Conference
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
MORNING KEYNOTE PANEL
Bioethics Education Across Careers: Beyond the Sage on the Stage
Angira Patel, MD, MPH; Megan Crowley-Matoka, PhD; and Tod Chambers, PhD
LUNCHTIME KEYNOTE PANEL
Why Clinical Ethics Matters, Now More than Ever
M. Jeanne Wirpsa, MA, BCC, HEC-C; Erin Talati Paquette, MD, JD, MBe, HEC-C, FAAP; and Preya Tarsney, JD, HEC-C
Trust
The Seventh Annual Northwestern Bioethics & Medical Humanities Conference
Friday, May 3, 2024
KEYNOTE
Promoting Respect, Equity and Trustworthiness in Research and Healthcare Engagement: Implications for Bioethicists
Faith E. Fletcher, PhD, MA (Baylor College of Medicine)
Resistance
The Sixth Annual Northwestern Bioethics & Medical Humanities Conference
Friday, May 19, 2023
KEYNOTE
All Options Ethics Counseling for Clinicians When Abortion Care Is Criminalized
Louise P. King, MD, JD (Harvard Medical School) and Katie Watson, JD (Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine)
Telling Time
The Fifth Annual Northwestern Bioethics & Medical Humanities Conference
Thursday, May 19, 2022
KEYNOTE
The Ends of Epidemics: Temporality, Disease, and the Uses of History
Jeremy Greene, MD, PhD, FACP
(Johns Hopkins University)
Health Across Borders
The Fourth Annual Northwestern Bioethics & Medical Humanities Conference
An Online Conference Series
Thursdays, June 3–July 8, 2021
KEYNOTE
Ebola and Structural Violence
Eugene Richardson (Harvard Medical School) and Paul Farmer (Harvard Medical School)
Medicine & Media
The Third Annual Northwestern Bioethics & Medical Humanities Conference
Friday, May 3, 2019
KEYNOTE PANEL
Reflections from the Trenches: A Conversation about the Media’s Role in Spreading & Stopping Inaccurate Health Information
Donna Leff, PhD (Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism); Matthew Weinstock (Modern Healthcare); Seth Trueger, MD (Northwestern Medicine and JAMA Network Open)
Artful Medicine: Where Art, Medicine, and Education Meet
The Second Annual Northwestern Bioethics & Medical Humanities Conference
Thursday, May 10, 2018
KEYNOTE
Can Visual Arts Training Improve Health Outcomes?
Joel Katz, MD, MACP (Harvard Medical School)
Producing Knowledge, Evolving Practice
The First Annual Northwestern Bioethics & Medical Humanities Conference
Friday, May 5, 2017
KEYNOTE:
“Taking Turns”: Graphic Medicine & the Oral History of a Chicago AIDS Unit