Center for Health Care Ethics and Human Dignity

Author of Strange New World and The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self

Cone Chapel at 7:00 PM

Contact Dr. Nathan Guy for more details.
nguy@harding.edu

Author of The Genesis of Gender

Cone Chapel

Contact Dr. Nathan Guy for more details.
nguy@harding.edu

The Health Care Ethics and Human Dignity Center is new, but our story began 50 years ago. In 1971, the same year the term “bioethics” was coined, Harding alumnus David Smith graduated from medical school. He began to experience firsthand the difficult questions surrounding the beginning and end of life. He felt he was poorly trained to deal with these ethically challenging issues and wondered how many Christian doctors felt the same. He began a journey of study and exploration in the theological and philosophical foundations for a Christian perspective on bioethical issues.

Blessed by God financially, Smith has pioneered this new center, helping secure the initial funds and helping select the director. He now serves on the executive team along with other incredibly noteworthy leaders. Dr. Robert Lawrence, for example, is a Harding alumnus who has recently been named Chief Medical Officer for the State of Alaska. He, like Smith, holds both a Doctor of Medicine and master’s degree in Christian bioethics from the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

Currently, the David E. Smith Health Care Ethics and Human Dignity Center is led by a wide range of highly credentialed leaders across a variety of disciplines, both within the Harding community and beyond; in the United States and around the world. Our dream is to be a recognized voice of Christian wisdom on ethical issues every family will face, preparing a generation to lead with the love of Christ.

• The center envisions the formation of undergrad and graduate students into faithful, morally excellent, knowledgeable, self-disciplined, steadfast, reverent and beneficial people who are compelled by love to address ethical issues with Christian humility, nuanced sensitivity and robust theological sensibility.
  
  
• The center prepares leaders in healthcare, ministry, science, government and a variety of other fields to speak to the ethical ramifications of contemporary advances in biomedical research and technology.
  
  
• The center prepares doctors, nurses and allied health professionals in the earliest stages of training for future practice as trusted experts who are dedicated to being present with suffering human beings without compromising the dignity of individual personhood.
  
  
• The center serves as a resource for trusted guidance regarding how followers of Jesus in any profession may engage contemporary ethical issues that arise in the health and human sciences.
  
  
• The center is designed to equip ministers, missionaries and church leaders to address congregational issues involving beginning-of-life, quality-of-life and end-of-life decisions.
  
  
• The center cultivates proficiency in bioethical issues among Christian leaders of churches, government, research facilities, community development programs and healthcare organizations with the goal of raising leaders who can be a trusted voice in the public sphere regarding bioethical issues that arise in healthcare, science, engineering, politics, law and education.

CLASSROOM

Working across multiple disciplines at both undergraduate and graduate levels, the center will focus on student engagement and course instruction in Christian medical ethics, focusing on topics at the intersection of theology, healthcare, identity, culture and spiritual formation.

COLLEAGUES

The center will provide faculty development on how issues involving bioethics and human dignity may best be addressed in the classroom and with credentialing bodies.

COMMUNITY

The center will establish and provide support for a series of outward facing works, building a network and offering resources for healthcare professionals, church and community leaders, alumni, and those interested in philosophical, theological, scientific, medical, legal and political ramifications of bioethical challenges in health care.

• Caleb Clanton, Ph.D. – Distinguished University Chair in Philosophy and Humanities, Lipscomb University (Nashville, Tennessee)
• Monte Cox, Ph.D. – Dean of the College of Bible and Ministry, Harding University (Searcy, Arkansas)
• Dr. Leah Fullman, MBA, Sc.D., CC-SLP – Inaugural Dean, School of Speech-Language Pathology, Pepperdine University (Malibu, California)
• Layne Keele, J.D. – Associate Professor of Law, Cumberland School of Law, Samford University (Birmingham, Alabama)
• Robert Lawrence, M.D. – Chief Medical Officer, State of Alaska (Anchorage, Alaska)
• Kraig Martin, Ph.D. – Professor of Philosophy and Bible, Harding University (Searcy, Arkansas)
• Dennis Matlock, Ph.D. – Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Harding University (Searcy, Arkansas)
• Mendy McClelland, PA-C – Associate Professor Biology, Harding University (Searcy, Arkansas)
• Michael McGalliard, SC.D, PT, COMT – Dean of College of Allied Health, Associate Provost of Health Sciences, Harding University (Searcy, Arkansas)
• Stacey Rodenbeck, Ph.D. – Teacher of the Year, Associate Professor, Department of Biology, Harding University (Searcy, Arkansas)
• Monty Self, D.Min. – Director, Dewey Center for Chaplaincy, Charleston Southern University (Charleston, S.C.)
• Rubel Shelly, Ph.D. – Former President, Rochester College, Teaching Minister, Harpeth Hills Church of Christ (Nashville, Tennessee)
• Michael Sleasman, Ph.D. – Director of Bioethics Program, Associate Professor of Bioethics, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Deerfield, Illinois)
• David Smith, M.D. – Palliative Care Physician, Baptist Health (Little Rock, Arkansas)