Human dignity at center of Catholic university's upcoming medical conference

(OSV News) -- An upcoming conference is inviting Catholic medical professionals and students to explore the meaning of health care, the necessity of self-care, and the modern challenges of artificial intelligence and genetic technologies while centering on one main thing: The dignity of the human person.

"When you're thinking about an ideal society, you don't start at the top," Dr. Ashley K. Fernandes, a keynote speaker at the fourth annual St. Gianna Medical Professionals Conference hosted by the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, said. "You start with the most vulnerable person you can think of, and you build around that person."

He added: "I think that's a gift that the church gives us -- is to think that way."

Fernandes and other scheduled speakers spoke with OSV News ahead of the university's conference that takes place Dec. 4-6. The conference, organized by the Benedictine school's St. Gianna School of Health Sciences, seeks to respond to health care needs by preparing attendees "to uphold the dignity of the human person through compassionate, courageous, ethical, and joyful care."

Organizers expect that the event, focused on the theme, "Mission-Driven Healthcare in a Profit-Driven World," will attract more than 500 health care professionals, educators, clergy, religious sisters and students from across the country.

"I think they're learning skills on, I can still be an outstanding provider -- a Catholic provider -- and work within that moral compass that ensures the best for my patients," Mary Dockter, dean of the St. Gianna School of Health Sciences, said. They will also learn that "I'm not alone in this; there are other people who feel the same way, and now I have some tools that I'm going to be able to use as a provider," she said.

A total of 645 U.S. Catholic hospitals assist with nearly 90 million patients every year, and 1 in 6 patients nationwide receives care in a Catholic hospital, according to numbers from 2014 listed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Catholic health care network extends further with more than 400 health care centers and other places of care.

The beginning of something new

The University of Mary conference draws its inspiration from a conference held by the Catholic Medical Association, or CMA, the largest association of Catholic individuals in health care, Dockter said.

"That was kind of the initial impetus," she said of CMA's conference. "How might we have something in the Upper Midwest geared towards our students in our multidisciplines."

She said that the upcoming conference features national speakers in an interprofessional format so that attendees can hear about the importance of "maintaining the dignity of life and how that's going to be important for (their) role as medical professionals."

During the multiday event, keynote speakers will address moral meaning in the business of health care, health care for those in need, AI, genetic technologies and self-care to prevent burnout.

"That's always a risk because of the demands that we're facing, whether it's just increased patient load, wait time, profit margins, insurance," said James Link, associate professor of psychology and Catholic Studies Endowed Chair at the University of Mary.

During the 2025 conference, Link, a licensed psychologist, will speak about "Healing the Healers: Faith-Inspired Self-Care to Prevent Burnout in Medical Professionals."

"A big part of operating out of a Catholic-Christian perspective is that we actually want to flourish in the midst of our vocation in our careers, that we want to see it as a path to holiness," Link said, before adding, "How do we take good care of our mind, body and soul, so that we have this reservoir of goodwill and virtue to give to the people that we interface with?"

A focus on life and death

In addition to keynote speeches, the conference includes Mass, a bioethics debate on embryo adoption, a "late show" featuring Fernandes, a Christmas concert and breakout sessions.

During one of the sessions, Dr. Christopher DeCock, a pediatric neurologist who practices at Essentia Health in Fargo, North Dakota, where he also serves as physician chair of the West Market Ethics Committee, will speak about "Gerrymandering Death."

DeCock, a clinical associate professor of pediatrics at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, served as an observing member of the drafting committee to revise the Uniform Declaration of Death Act.

"Among secular bioethicists, there is a big push to loosen the standard for death," he said. "Part of the reason for that push was to promote some, what I would argue, are unethical procedures."

He pointed to normothermic regional perfusion, a procedure used in organ donation where, following a cardiopulmonary death, a patient is resuscitated "after theoretically a five-minute hands-off period, and then they plant or sever the arteries to the brain and suck out the blood to ensure that … they don't get brain function."

"They're using that procedure to ensure that death has occurred," he said. "That's one example of gerrymandering death."

The good of the human person

Health care must serve the human person, said Fernandes, clinical professor of pediatrics at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and associate director of the Center for Bioethics at the Ohio State University College of Medicine in Columbus. At the conference, he will speak about "Hard Days but Never Bad Days: Finding Moral Meaning in the Business of Healthcare."

"What I want to try to do is to show that … particularly in Catholic health care, you can have a synthesis of proper health care that's situated around the human person as the primary end," Fernandes, who is also an instructor of bioethics at the University of Mary, said. "And out of that, the health care system can be structured."

If attendees take away one thing from the conference and his talk, he hopes they remember that "at the center of everything we do as health care professionals or as medical business administrators is the human person."

He added: "That that human person -- that individual human person -- can't be sacrificed for some other good."