Posted by William Nunnelley on 2007-04-13

Samford University's Healthcare Ethics and Law Institute (HEAL) awarded Pellegrino Medals to three leaders in healthcare ethics during its annual conference on improving end-of-life care Friday, April 13.

The honorees, recognized for their contributions to healthcare ethics, were George J. Annas, the Edward R. Utley Professor and chair of the Department of Health Law, Bioethics and Human Rights at Boston University School of Public Health; Dr. Amy Marie Haddad, director of the Center for Health Policy and Ethics and the Dr. C.C. and Mabel L. Criss Endowed Chair in Health Sciences at Creighton University, Omaha, Neb.; and Dr. Lawrence J. Schneiderman, professor emeritus in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine in the Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego.

The medal is named for Edmund D. Pellegrino, the first recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. Called the "father of the American bioethics movement," Pellegrino also received the first award bearing his name from the HEAL Institute in 2001.

Professor Annas is the author of 16 books on health law and bioethics, including the 2005 book American Bioethics: Crossing Human Rights and Health Law Boundaries. He writes the "Health Law, Ethics and Human Rights" feature in the New England Journal of Medicine. 

Dr. Haddad, author of The Health Professional and Patient Interaction and other books, writes the "Ethics in Action" column for RN magazine for professional nurses. She recently received the Distinguished Pharmacy Educator Award from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.

Dr. Schneiderman, author of more than 160 medical and scientific articles, was the founding cochair of the University of California, San Diego Medical Center Ethics Committee. He serves on the editorial board of the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. 

The HEAL Institute was created in 1999 in Samford's McWhorter School of Pharmacy to provide educational programs that support patients and healthcare providers, people who make healthcare decisions and institutional ethics committees. Dr. Bruce D. White serves as director of HEAL.

 
Samford is a leading Christian university offering undergraduate programs grounded in the liberal arts with an array of nationally recognized graduate and professional schools. Founded in 1841, Samford is the 87th-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Samford enrolls 6,101 students from 45 states, Puerto Rico and 16 countries in its 10 academic schools: arts, arts and sciences, business, divinity, education, health professions, law, nursing, pharmacy and public health. Samford fields 17 athletic teams that compete in the tradition-rich Southern Conference and ranks 6th nationally for its Graduation Success Rate among all NCAA Division I schools.