John F. Grant MD Endowment
John F. Grant MD Endowment funds lively healthcare ethics seminar
Should patients have the right to refuse life-saving treatment? When can a doctor breach a patient’s confidentiality? Should a parent always have the final say in her child’s medical care? Today’s expanding medical field grapples increasingly with complex issues like these, making health care ethics one of the fastest growing fields in philosophy. The John F. Grant, M.D., Symposium on Health Care (PHIL 379) allows students to engage with critical topics pertaining to health care ethics, including reproduction, science fiction and bioethics, Catholic bioethics, disability, feminist bioethics, and more. The seminar class is capped at 15 students, allowing for lively back-and-forth discussions that are difficult to have in larger classes.
This course is funded by the John F. Grant, MD, Endowment for the Study of Health Care Ethics. Dr. Grant attended Loyola University Chicago and enrolled in various philosophy classes as an undergraduate. After serving as a medic in World War II, he returned to Loyola to earn his medical degree and went on to become a well-respected general surgeon in Sandusky, Ohio. He spoke often of how the lessons he learned in his philosophy courses influenced his medical career. His passion for medicine and philosophy compelled him to establish an endowment in 1999 to foster the study of health care ethics for future Loyola students. This endowment now funds an annual public lecture in Health Care Ethics, various awards for essay competitions in bioethics, health equity awards, outstanding junior and senior awards, as well as the guest speakers for the John F. Grant Seminar.
The John F. Grant seminar combines rigorous class discussions with in-depth lectures from leading experts across disciplines. Whether listening to a doctor discuss treatment of vulnerable populations or writing an essay that debates using human specimens for medical research, students will ask difficult questions with no simple answers. After experiencing such an enriching learning environment, students just might discover an enduring passion for philosophy as Dr. John F. Grant did over 70 years ago.