35th Annual Jonathan J. King Lecture
On Tuesday, October 14, we had the honor of welcoming Dr. Arthur Kleinman, renowned medical anthropologist and author of The Illness Narratives, for a deeply moving and thought-provoking lecture titled:
“When Care Comes First: A Radical Reimagining of Medical Ethics.”
Held at the Stanford Faculty Club and livestreamed to a global audience, the event brought together professionals from across the medical and academic communities, and community members for an evening of powerful insights on empathy, ethics, and the human side of medicine.
For more information about the Annual King Lectureship, visit our King Lectureship page.
See lecture recording from the event below:
Faculty in the News: Dr. Alyssa Burgart on Ethical Challenges in the Drug Crisis
Dr. Alyssa Burgart, a medical ethicist at Stanford University, was featured in an October 2025 San Francisco Chronicle article examining the rise of endocarditis, a life-threatening heart infection increasingly seen among people who inject drugs.
In the piece, Dr. Burgart discussed the ethical dilemmas faced by physicians treating patients with severe addiction and recurring infections.
“We want to be able to help patients to live longer with a higher quality of life,” she said, “but these social issues — a lack of housing, poor access to mental health care, clean needles and substance-use treatment — really show up in these ethical dilemmas, because we can’t control those other aspects.”
Her perspective highlights how medical ethics intersect with broader social determinants of health, underscoring the challenges clinicians face in providing equitable and compassionate care amid the ongoing drug crisis.
Read the full article in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics
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Congratulations to Medicine & The Muse
Award Winners of two Best of CASE District VII Awards for both the Apart-Together COVID-19 Remembrance Project and the Stanford Stuck@Home Concert at Bing Hall, Live! Concert.
2022 Circle of Excellence - Grand Gold Award
Best of CASE District VII
Read More about the Project here.
Watch the Stanford Soundwalk Project here.
Congrats to Dr. Mildred Cho for winning the inaugural Bernard Lo, MD Award
Watch the Award Ceremony Here!
Mildred Cho, PhD, Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at Stanford University, has been named the recipient of The Greenwall Foundation’s inaugural Bernard Lo, MD Award in Bioethics.
The Lo Award recognizes Prof. Cho for excellence in bioethics mentorship and for going above and beyond to support and guide rising bioethics professionals.
Learn more about Dr. Cho's approach in the importance of bioethics mentorship here.
Advanced Health Care Directive
California law give you the ability to ensure that your health care wishes are known and considered if you become unable to make these decisions yourself. Completing a form called an “Advance Health Care Directive” allows you to do a number of things:
Appoint another person to be your health care “agent”
Delineate your health care wishes, such as:
- Health care instructions, including life support, organ and tissue donation
- Revoke prior directives
The sample form is above for reference. Acknowledgment before a notary public is not required if two qualified witnesses have signed this Directive in Part 5. In other words this is a free legally binding document.
Select "Centers, Institutes and More," then "Other Designation (specify below)" then type in "Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics."
