| Hastings Center | |
|---|---|
| Motto | The Hastings Center is a nonpartisan research institution dedicated to bioethics and the public interest since 1969. |
| Formation | 1969 |
| Type | Bioethics research institute |
| Headquarters | Garrison, New York |
| Location | United States |
| President | Thomas H. Murray |
| Key people |
Daniel Callahan Josephine Johnston Michael K. Gusmano Gregory Kaebnick Karen Maschke Erik Parens |
| Website | www.thehastingscenter.org |
The Hastings Center, founded in 1969, is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit bioethics research institute based in the United States. It is dedicated to the examination of essential questions in health care, biotechnology, and the environment. The center has over 180 fellows, including many physicians, attorneys, PhDs and bioethicists.
It is headquartered in Garrison, New York, on the former Woodlawn estate designed by Richard Upjohn.
Contents |
The center is best known as the publisher of Hastings Center Report [1] and IRB: Ethics & Human Research [2], which feature scholarship and commentary in bioethics for readers worldwide. Both are published six times per year. The Report also periodically features special reports, published as supplements, from the center's research projects.
In March 2006, the center launched Bioethics Forum [3], a free website "offering thoughtful commentary, representing a range of perspectives, on contemporary debates in bioethics and bioethical issues in the news."[1]
The Health Care Cost Monitor was added in May 2009. Edited by Hastings Center cofounder Daniel Callahan, the blog publishes "commentary and opinion on cost control as part of health care reform."[2]
The center's projects, carried out by interdisciplinary research teams, range from "stem cell politics", to globalization and its impact on health status, to "science in the age of big pharma". Primary research areas include genetics and biotechnology, health care and health policy, ethics, science, the environment, and international science ethics. The center strives to frame and explore issues that inform professional practice, public conversation, and social policy.
The center conducts seminar-style meetings to review developments in science and policy, frame legal and social issues, and in-depth critical reflection on fundamental principles and values. Center research scholars write and speak on a variety of topics and assist members of the press and others.
The center is funded by grant money, private donations, and subscriptions.
The Morison Library serves as a resource for center research scholars, fellows, visitors, and others.
Since 1976, the center's Henry Knowles Beecher Award has recognized "individuals who have made a lifetime contribution to ethics and the life sciences and whose careers have been devoted to excellence in scholarship, research, and ethical inquiry." Recipients include Joanne Lynn, Edmund D. Pellegrino, Henry K. Beecher, Sissela Bok, Jay Katz, Daniel Callahan, Willard Gaylin, Paul Ramsey, Joseph Fletcher, and Hans Jonas.[3]
In 2009, the center and the Cunniff-Dixon foundation launched the Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician Awards. Four prizes totaling $95,000 will be awarded to physicians who "have shown their care of patients to be exemplary, a model of good medicine for other physicians, and a great benefit in advancing the centrality of end-of-life care as a basic part of the doctor-patient relationship."[4] The 2010 recipients were Robert A. Milch for the established physician award, and Elisabeth Potts Dellon, Jeffrey N. Stoneberg, and Eytan Szmuilowicz for the early-career physician awards.[5]