Michigan Ethics Economy Initiative Podcast Series

One of the first resources A2Ethics offered on our website was a map showing permanent ethics initiatives distinguishing our state. Notably unique among them in our view was--and still remains--The Center for Law, Ethics and Health at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. The Center was founded in 2005 and is directed by Peter Jacobson, Professor of Health Law and Policy.

Before A2Ethics talked with Darlene Wahlberg, an IRB administrator for St. Joseph Mercy Health Care System, we had to get her informed consent. We thought it meant getting her to talk with us about her responsibility for managing and documenting the work of one of St. Joseph Mercy's Institutional Review Boards. Institutional Review Boards, more commonly known as IRBs, have been part of the structure of health care and foundations of medical ethics for forty years.

There are many centers doing ethics work and contributing to the growing global "ethics economy." As far as we know, however, there is only one center which combines study of bioethical issues with the social sciences in medicine. Notably, it is in Michigan--at the University of Michigan Medical School--and known as CBSSM, a felicitous acronym for The Center for Bioethics and the Social Sciences in Medicine.  

"If I major in philosophy or ethics, what will I be able to do? Other than teach?"We didn't pose those questions to distinguished ethics teacher Brian Miller. Such questions would never occur to us. After all, what better life than teaching ethics and philosophy? 

Media recognition of social enterprise overwhelmingly focuses on social entrepreneurs whose initiatives are the passions of the technology moguls and philanthropists of Silicon Valley. Here in Michigan, however, social entrepreneurs are relying, not only on innovative ways to deal with large ethical problems, from food justice to restorative justice, they are relying on a new legal form to do something and to make a difference.

Public awareness of pediatric bioethics dilemmas is often limited to media reports dramatizing conflicts over the rights of families and doctors in determining the circumstances for performing highly experimental surgeries or limiting life-saving treatments to seriously ill newborns, today remembered as educational case studies or lawsuit names--from Baby Fae to Baby K. 

Perhaps you have had a discussion with friends about the best attributes you want in your own doctor.At A2Ethics.org, we have recently had such a chat (More on an entirely different kind of chat in a moment). One quality we decided is truly essential: the doctor who listens, not only to our hearts and lungs, but who actually listens to what we say and hears us out. In other words, we want our doctor to give us a fair amount of time. We don’t need all day. Just enough to get our concerns circulated and aired in a fair-minded and nonjudgmental manner.  

Imagine meeting each month with a small group of doctors, nurses and a few fellow residents of your community at a local hospital. No, you are not organizing the gala benefit that annually raises funds for the hospital. Nor are you talking over your monthly assignment as a member of  the hospital's auxiliary and volunteer corps. 

Higher education institutions, and the eclectic ethics centers attached to them, are central to the nurturing and growth of a flourishing ethics economy.  A2Ethics.org has identified this economy as one where people take career pathways that involve working with ethics ideas, and whose professions and livelihoods are ethics-related.  We have been documenting this economy whenever we get a chance to talk with people helping to build this ethics economy.

Our Michigan Ethics Economy Initiative took us recently to Eastern Michigan University's College of Business to talk with Dean David Mielke.

Join Bart and Jeanine from Downtown Detroit for a conversation with DTE Energy Chief Compliance Officer Anthony Tocco. The Ethics and Compliance Department is a fixture of many major corporations, and we find out how the ethics of a corporation and its employees stay in balance.For additional information referred to in this podcast, please follow these links:DTE Energy Way -- The company's core values.