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| A groundbreaking ceremony was held March 6 for a $5.6 million bioethics center on the University of Colorado Denver's Fitzsimons campus in Aurora. |
Groundbreaking held for unique
bioethics center at Fitzsimons
From stem cell research and its much-debated potential to cure devastating
diseases to the burgeoning use of Internet searches to find living organ donors,
doctors, nurses, researchers, ethicists and the public are being challenged
to answer increasingly complex questions about health care.
Health care is being transformed by advances in biomedical research
and information technology, and the answers to many questions posed
today will shape tomorrow’s treatments and the moral ties that bind
us.
At the University of Colorado Denver,
a step has been taken in the direction of helping society discuss and help
resolve these and many other complex health care questions.
On March 6, a groundbreaking ceremony at the Fitzsimons campus celebrated
the beginning of construction of a $5.6 million center for the study of ethics
and humanities in health care. The planned Fulginiti Pavilion for Ethics and
Humanities, slated to open in summer 2007, will be a one-of-a-kind gathering
place and interactive educational center.
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| Shirley and Vincent Fulginiti. |
The building will house the CU Center for Bioethics and Humanities,
whose core mission is promoting ethical, just and humane health care
and serving as a source of knowledge in bioethics and humanities for the
people of Colorado
and the entire Rocky Mountain Region. The pavilion is to be named
for former UCD Chancellor Dr. Vincent Fulginiti, under whose leadership
the center
was created.
“
Most of you here this morning probably don’t know this, but the project
we are here to launch started more than five years ago,” said Mark Yarborough,
PhD, associate professor of bioethics at the CU School of Medicine and director
of the CU Center for Bioethics and Humanities, as he addressed the faculty,
university leadership and community guests gathered for the groundbreaking. “The
advisory board voted unanimously to undertake the task to have an
ethics and humanities building on the Fitzsimons campus.
“
I’m not sure they knew exactly what they were letting themselves in
for when they took that vote, but the faculty will be forever grateful for
the board’s vision, confidence and commitment to the work of the Center
for Bioethics and Humanities,” he said. “To the board I say, thank
you, thank you, and thank you.”
The 10,000-square-foot bioethics pavilion, which is being built entirely
by private donations, promises to be a unique national resource and
a landmark on the expanding Fitzsimons campus. Among other architectural details,
the
center will feature a high-tech amphitheatre/forum, educational art
galleries, conference rooms, and a video/Internet gallery for interactive
exhibits.
The in-the-round amphitheatre was designed to enable open and robust
dialogue, and is expected to attract a broad cross section of the
public to work with academic leaders and other professionals during conferences,
summits
and other events.
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| CU President Hank Brown. |
“
Our new home will afford us the setting we’ve envisioned for years.
It will enable us to bring large, diverse groups of people together to engage
in discussions and problem solving of moral issues in health care,” said
Yarborough. “This gathering place was intended, from the very outset,
to be a gift to the people of Colorado, to provide our citizens with
a new resource and a place to address contentious issues and search
for meaningful resolutions.”
Among the issues that could be addressed at the new bioethics center:
Should there be limits placed on efforts to extend the human life
span? How can death best be choreographed at the end of life? What limits,
if any, should
society set on reproductive breakthroughs? Millions of Americans
are uninsured: Can U.S. society address this crisis and ensure more equitable
access to health
care?
In addition to Yarborough, others who celebrated the groundbreaking
included CU President Hank Brown, UCD Interim Chancellor Greg
Stiegmann, MD, UCD Executive Vice Chancellor Jay Gershen, DDS,
PhD, Aurora Mayor Ed
Tauer and Catholic Health Initiatives Director of Communications
Peg O’Keefe,
who heads the center’s advisory board.
“
The new home for the CU Center for Bioethics and Humanities is the
culmination of years of collaboration between the public and private sectors,
and it will bear fruit in the years to come as we as a society and medical
community contend with increasingly complex health care issues,” Stiegmann
said.
