Biomedical Ethics and Law

The Biomedical Ethics and Law Programme supports research in any area of the ethics and law of health care, broadly conceived.  The Programme is designed to bring together ethical and legal theorists, empirically orientated researchers, educators and other professionals, both within the University of Hull and from elsewhere.  As such, the research activities undertaken are genuinely inter-disciplinary.  Ongoing activities are shaped by the research interests of members, which currently include, inter alia, mental capacity and mental health law and ethics and phenomenology and embodiment in health care.  Members of the Programme also work within the Centre for Experts and Institutions and the Centre for Research into Embodied Subjectivity.  The Biomedical Ethics and Law Programme organises a seminar series which takes place over a semester each academic year.

 

Programme Director: Dr Phil Bielby LLB (Hull) PCHE (Sheffield) PhD (Sheffield) 


Biomedical ethics and law research associates

Gianluca Andresani
  is Lecturer in the Business School.  His research interests are in the areas of ethics and public policy, ethics and public service, professional ethics (in particular medical, legal and academic professions), organisational and political ethics.

Phil Bielby is a Lecturer in the Law School. Phil is the author of Competence and Vulnerability in Biomedical Research (Springer, 2008) and a number of articles on bioethics and medical law.  His interests surround ethico-legal issues in mental capacity and mental health concerning consent to treatment and research.


Rob Clucas is Lecturer in Law at the University of Hull. His research interests have included jurisprudence and children. He has published articles on jurisprudence; medical ethics, particularly conjoined twins; human rights, and children's rights and welfare.

 

Raphael Cohen-Almagor is Professor of Politics at the Department of Politics and International Studies. Amongst his research interests figure medical ethics, media ethics, and multiculturalism.

 

Stella Gonzalez-Arnal is a Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Hull. She is working on ethical issues in genetics.

  

Mark Gretton is a Lecturer in nursing at the University of Hull. He is working towards his PhD on the ethical issues of resuscitation.

 

Annabel Howe is a PhD student based in the Law School. Annabel is interested in the role of contemporaneous wishes expressed by persons in the mid to late stages of dementia, within the interpretation of advance directives.  Her thesis draws attention to how the lived experience of dementia and illness changes how such individuals value their existence.

 

Kathleen Lennon is Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Hull. She has research interests in the body and identity, with a particular focus on the gendered body and issues of transsexuality.

James Mullen is a solicitor and currently undertaking a part-time PhD research in the Law School.  His research interests are in the areas of compulsory hospitalisation and treatment of vulnerable adults, withholding consent and proxy decision making.

 

Martin Parry is a solicitor and Emeritus Reader in Law at the Law School. His research specialism is the law relating to child protection, on which he writes as joint author of the 'Children' volume of Butterworths Family Law Service. He is also a senior associate manager with the Humber NHS Foundation Trust.

 

Diane Pitt is an Honorary Research Associate in Philosophy, who works primarily within the developing area of applied phenomenology, with a special interest in phenomenology and medicine.  Her research explores the phenomenology of illness, and connected to this is a phenomenological investigation of medical diagnostics.

 

Liz Smith is a Lecturer in Nursing at the University of Hull. She is working towards her PhD on the ethics of neonatal decision making.

 

Suzanne Uniacke is a Reader in Applied Ethics in the Philosophy Department. She works on issues of rights and obligations, and issues of life and death in medico-legal contexts.

 

Tony Ward is a Reader in the Law School. His research interests include the law and ethics of expert evidence and the history of psychiatry in relation to law.

 

Demian Whiting is Senior Lecturer in Medical Ethics and Professionalism at the University of Hull. His research interests include medical ethics and professionalism (including, the regulation of attitudes, apologies and conscientious objections in medical practice), philosophy of mind (in particular, theories of emotion), and philosophy of health (including, theories of health, disorder, and decisional capacity).

 

 

Research Seminars

The IAE invites papers from high profile academics in applied ethics whose work links with the interests of people at Hull. A biomedical ethics and law seminar programme is organised each year.  Previous seminarsCurrent seminars 

See also News and Current Events

PhD Research
There are currently two Research Associates who are undertaking PhD research in the field of Biomedical Ethics and Law.  Further details of their work can be found on Biomedical Ethics and Law PhD Research.

 

Conferences and Workshops

See  Presentations and conference participation 

Together with local ethics committees the IAE co-organised a one day workshop on withdrawing treatment to very ill infants. This was held on 22 April 2005.

 

The IAE organised a workshop on Antisocial Personality Disorder and Responsibility: Scientific and Ethical Issues, held in York on 26 June 2006. Funding was provided by the Wellcome Trust.

 

IAE supported research

 

Click here for a list of biomedical ethics and law research that the IAE has supported. Research

 

Externally funded research

 

Click here for a list of externally funded research in biomedical ethics and law. External funding

 

Publications

See general list of IAE publications.