Rivers Bioethics Juniors Present Research to Community
What are the ethics of pursuing a new medicine or treatment that could mean a life-changing breakthrough for a patient? What are the social and legal challenges that arise to prevent certain populations from receiving adequate care? Five Rivers juniors, participants in the Special Program in Bioethics, attempted to answer these and similar questions in a recent Upper School meeting in late April, presenting a summary of their year-long research and offering their own contributions to the field of bioethics.
Led by Dr. Julian Willard P’24, department chair of the Interdisciplinary Studies Department and the founder of the program, the cohort meets weekly throughout the academic year on top of their course load to consider ethical questions and topics in the medical field and discuss their research. The small group of Rivers students also meets twice a year with the Community Ethics Committee (CEC) at Harvard Medical School to learn about bioethics in the industry and community; they presented their projects at the April CEC meeting.
Participants begin the work of narrowing their focus after a few months in the program, identifying a project or topic they can become passionate about. “These topics are complex, have multiple answers, and engage perspectives different from our own,” Willard said to the assembly. “Agreement may not be possible, but greater understanding is vital.”
In developing the projects, students must choose between a traditional research project and a project with a community focus.
In one such community-focused project, Taylor Ehler ’25, whose father is a 25-year officer in the police force, was drawn to investigate the issue of mental health in the police community after seeing a different side to the police force from what she saw portrayed in the news and in her social circles. For her investigation, she interviewed the Employee Assistance Unit and sought to raise awareness about the stigma police officers face with receiving mental health support.
Pursuing a research topic with a community in mind, Joyce Do ’25 chose to investigate issues of patient non-adherence in the homeless population. Do was drawn to the topic after volunteering at a homeless shelter and attending a summer camp focused on public health. In her project, she addressed the barriers many homeless people face in achieving sufficient stability and health literacy to maintain a treatment plan.
Lily Shah ’25 sought to promote public awareness and investigate possible solutions to the scarcity of human organs for transplant candidates by researching xenotransplantation, currently still a very experimental treatment. In another project, Spencer Gary ’25 considered the theme of clinical research and expanding the availability of experimental treatments not yet approved by the FDA for patients with life-threatening illnesses.
Nicole Lidforss ’25 investigated the ethics of using CRISPR technology—a technology used to selectively modify DNA—in the treatment of sickle cell disease. She also explored issues such as accessibility, affordability, and race in the treatment of the disease, which disproportionately affects African American individuals.
Participants in the bioethics program are not limited to those with an interest in medicine. Willard also brings in students who have a high interest in ethics in general and in service learning. “Someone may just be interested in fairness, or helping to address issues of injustice in marginalized communities,” says Willard, who emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of the program, which counts toward fulfilling students’ interdisciplinary studies requirement.
“Our faculty are very interested in supporting the exploration of medical issues in science,” says Willard, who credits a strong Upper School curriculum in many disciplines with supporting the work of the bioethics students.
In addition to the weekly cohort meetings and associated readings, the bioethics group has mentorship opportunities with professionals in the industry, such as researcher Lori Bruce of the Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics at Yale, who visited the group in February. Carol Powers, who is the co-founder and chair of the Community Ethics Committee, also serves as a mentor for the students, offering feedback on the research papers. “Our students are fortunate to have access to this extended bioethics community,” says Willard.
Willard never loses sight of the program’s relevance in the present day. In our society, reflects Willard, many have lost trust in public institutions. “One way of rebuilding trust and safeguarding trust is having open discussions about our values,” he says. It’s programs like these that continue such conversations and reaffirm the need for bioethics, Willard says.
Willard has high praise for this cohort: “These five students have worked their socks off on something very personal and very important. They should be very proud of what they achieved.”
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