"What Does It Cost to Save a Life?: Weighing the Promise of Medical Technology Against Its Personal, Systemic, Ecological and Social Costs"
5:30-7:00pm MT FREE
Join Kati at the Utah Humanities Book Festival and the University of Utah School of Medicine’s Center for Health Ethics, Art, and Humanities for a lively discussion as part of the Evening Ethics speaker series.
What if a lifesaving medical device causes loss of life along its supply chain? That's the question Katherine E. Standefer finds herself asking one night after being suddenly shocked by her implanted cardiac defibrillator. In her gripping, intimate debut memoir Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life, Standefer explores the true cost of her ICD--from the technology's impact on her body and life, to her harrowing experience in the American healthcare system, to her global journey into the mines and factories where the minerals in her device may have originated. In this Evening Ethics discussion, we'll explore how Standefer's complex experience as a "cyborg" and supply chain research map onto the Four Pillars of Medical Ethics, wrestling with complicated questions about harm, justice, and autonomy on both the individual and communal level.
This event is made possible with the support from Utah Humanities, The King's English, and The Program in Medical Ethics and Humanities at the University of Utah School of Medicine as part of the Evening Ethics Discussion Regularly Scheduled Series.
Zoom link: https://utah.zoom.us/ j/97868455735 Passcode: 106477
