upstate medical university center for bioethics and humanities

About CBH

The Center for Bioethics and Humanities is a department of SUNY Upstate's College of Medicine. While housed in the College of Medicine, we serve all four colleges of SUNY Upstate (Health Professions, Nursing, Graduate Studies, and Medicine) and University Hospital. Our faculty hold primary appointments in the College of Medicine; our scholarly backgrounds include medicine, philosophy, law, literature, and the social sciences.

Founded by Kathy Faber-Langendoen in 2000, the Center brought together the Program in Medical Humanities (led by Robert Daly), the Program in Bioethics, and humanities scholars from the College of Health Professions. The Center is funded in part by a generous endowment from the SUNY Upstate Medical Alumni Association. The Center was formally granted departmental status in 2006.

Our mission is to advance the scholarly and professional understanding of bioethics and the medical humanities, and thereby promote clinical health care and health policy that is patient-centered, compassionate, and just. Like other clinical departments in medical schools, we do this in three major ways:

education: we teach courses, seminars, workshops for students, residents, and clinicians in practice
scholarly work: we carry out and publish a wide range of scholarly work, ranging from original research to our literary journal, The Healing Muse
clinical services: we provide ethics consultation services for patients, families, clinicians, and administrators for University Hospital and its outpatient facilities

In addition, we are increasingly involved analyzing and offering recommendations regarding health care policy and legislation, working to achieve our mission of more compassionate and just health care in the public arena.

We are located at 725 Irving Avenue in Suite 406 of the Physician's Office Building, right across from Crouse Hospital and only two minutes from Weiskotten Hall. Come visit us!