Schirber Lecture Series

The Schirber Lecture Series was established in the early 1980s by Dr. & Mrs. Martin Schirber of Grand Rapids, MN, for the express purpose of enriching the undergraduate education of students heading for careers in the health professions. Their hope was to provide students with opportunities to hear from experts about some of the human, ethical, political and economic issues associated with the health care system.

David Durenberger, SJU '55, served as senior United States Senator for Minnesota from 1978 to 1995. He now serves as Senior Health Policy Fellow at the University of St. Thomas and chairs the NIHP.

Dr. Debra DeBruin, assistant professor and director of graduate studies at the Center for Bioethics, and the Department of Medicine, University of Minnesota since December 2000, will consider what it means to pursue genetic advances in a socially responsible manner. The lecture, part of the Dr. Martin and Rose Marie Schirber Lecture Series in Medical Ethics, is free and open to the public.

Dr. DeBruin's lecture will note the rapid advances in genetic research that offer the promise of breathtaking possibilities in medicine. Yet, she says, society must be sensitive to the potential pitfalls of these possibilities – from violations of privacy to concerns about discrimination and the specter of eugenics.

In addition to teaching philosophy and bioethics, DeBruin has served as a health policy fellow for Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy in the Democratic office of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee of the Senate. She has also worked as a consultant to the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine, and the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, on issues relating to the ethics of research. She received her bachelor of arts magna cum laude with distinction in philosophy from Carleton College, Northfield, MN, and her doctorate in philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh. DeBruin recently completed a Greenwall Postdoctoral Fellowship in Bioethics and Health Policy at Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health and Georgetown University. Her areas of interest include the ethics of research involving human participants and public health policy.

Michael Hemmesch
CSB/SJU Director of Media Relations
New Science Center #118
Saint John’s University
Collegeville, MN 56321
Phone 320-363-2595
Fax 320-363-2016
mhemmesch@csbsju.edu