On Lonely Deaths: COVID, Community, & the Lost Art of Dying Well
Wednesday, April 7, 2021
History may well record the infliction of lonely dying as the greatest tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic. To mitigate virus spread and conserve PPE, facilities introduced severe visitor restrictions. Families were prohibited from gathering, and the most vulnerable suffered physically and mentally. This talk explores the ethics of pandemic-induced lonely dying. It recalls an earlier plague, when dying was inescapably a community affair, and proposes that we reclaim this lost art of dying well.
The speaker, Dr. Lydia Dugdale, is the Dorothy L. and Daniel H. Silberberg Associate Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons, where she also directs Columbia's Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. A primary care doctor, Dugdale served on the frontlines of the Spring 2020 COVID outbreak in New York City. She has cultivated an interest over the past two decades in helping her patients prepare well for death. Her latest book, The Lost Art of Dying (HarperOne, 2020), draws on lessons from the mid-fourteenth century Bubonic plague outbreak to ask how we might live well in order to die well.
The moderator, Bryan C. Pilkington, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the School
of Health and Medical Sciences. He is Adjunct Associate Professor at the College of
Nursing. Professor Pilkington is Affiliated Faculty in the Department of Philosophy
at Seton Hall University.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
About IHS Bioethics, The Dignity Series: Online
This series was created to bring together scholars of national and international prominence to engage members of the Seton Hall Communities on pressing issues of our shared human experience. The lectures in this series force us to confront violations of human dignity by raising awareness of such violations and offering resources for reflection and response. Previous lectures in this series include: "Care of Severely Impaired African American Newborns: A Matter of Public Health & Christian Ethics" given by Dr. Patrick Smith (2019) and "The Dialectic of Acceptance and Change: The Challenge of Respecting Human Dignity in Behavioral Health Care" given by J. Michael Stebbins, the Toth Lonergan Endowed Visiting Professor at Seton Hall (2020).
About the Center for Catholic Studies
Founded at Seton Hall University in 1997, the Center for Catholic Studies is dedicated to fostering an ongoing dialogue between the Catholic intellectual tradition and all areas of study and contemporary culture. In the spirit of the Catholic Church's legacy of bringing forth things "new and old," the Center's scholarly research, publications, and programming serve to generate new initiatives and facilitate conversation and collaboration among faculty, administrators, students, and the general public.
The primary function of the Center for Catholic Studies (CCS) is to foster the Catholic
mission of Seton Hall in creative ways. It endeavors to be an incubator for innovative
initiatives in promoting Catholic identity across the university. It fulfills this
role for diverse demographics within the university in five principal areas: Faculty
Development, Interdisciplinary Collaboration, Intellectual Life, Student Engagement,
and Ongoing Innovation.
The Center developed the undergraduate program in Catholic Studies Program which offers a major, minor and certificate and continues to support the Program's
students with scholarship aid as well as ongoing co-curricular activities. Focusing
on the central role of the faculty, the Center also sponsors regular Faculty Development
programs, including lectures, seminars and retreats. In addition, the Center administers
two national faculty programs: Collegium: A Colloquy on Faith and Intellectual Life,
and The Lilly Fellows Program.
The Center maintains a global focus in international scholarship and is the home of the G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture, as well as the Bernard J. Lonergan Institute. The Institutes offer opportunities for study and research, as well as ongoing programs related to faith and culture. In addition, the Micah Institute for Business and Economics concentrates on communicating Catholic Social Teaching and ethics to business education at Seton Hall and the wider business community. The Center also publishes the prestigious Chesterton Review and The Lonergan Review. For more information, visit here!
Categories: Faith and Service, Nation and World
