“Caring Corrupted: The Killing Nurses of the Third Reich” Screening and Discussion

In the Third Reich, many German nurses served the Nazi regime, choosing to abandon professional ethics. They used their skills to murder people with physical and mental disabilities and illnesses, participating in cruel medical experimentation and genocide. Caring Corrupted: The Killing Nurses of the Third Reich chronicles the stories of these nurses and questions how and why they became involved in Nazi crimes.

This program will feature a screening of Caring Corrupted followed by a discussion with Dr. Patricia Starck, Dean Emerita of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Cizik School of Nursing, and Dr. Cathy Rozmus, PARTNERS Professor and Vice Dean of Academic Affairs at the Cizik School of Nursing at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. The discussion will be moderated by Joseph J. Fins, M.D., D. Hum. Litt., M.A.C.P., F.R.C.P.

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Dr. Patricia Starck, PhD, and Dean Emerita of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Cizik School of Nursing was dean for over 30 years. Dr. Starck retired as the Dean in 2014 but continued her role as Senior Vice President of the university at request of the president until she retired in 2016. Dr. Starck worked in the field of Human Suffering and joined with other health care professionals in the Texas Medical Center to help ensure that today’s students understand the part that nurses, doctors, and others played in the atrocities of the Third Reich as a cautionary tale.

Dr. Cathy Rozmus is the PARTNERS Professor and Vice Dean of Academic Affairs at the Cizik School of Nursing at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. She is also Faculty Associate in the McGovern Medical School’s McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics. She has previously served as a dean of the Georgia Southwestern State University School of Nursing. Dr. Rozmus was the Vice President for Academic Affairs at Georgia Southwestern for seven years. Dr. Rozmus’ research includes health behavior decision making and cancer symptoms. Her most recent research has been focused on ethics education for health care professionals.

Joseph J. Fins is The E. William Davis, Jr. M.D. Professor of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College where he is a Tenured Professor of Medicine and chair of the Ethics Committee of New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center. At Yale Law School, he is the Solomon Center Distinguished Scholar in Medicine, Bioethics and the Law and a Visiting Professor of Law. The author of over 500 papers, chapters, essays, and books, his most recent book is Rights Come to Mind: Brain Injury, Ethics and The Struggle for Consciousness. Dr. Fins is an elected Member of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, and by Royal Appointment an Academico de Honor (Honored Academic) of the Real Academia Nacional de Medicina de España (the Royal National Academy of Medicine of Spain). Professor Fins is President of the International Neuroethics Society, a Past President of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, and Chair-Elect of the Hastings Center Board of Trustees. Dr. Fins is a Trustee Emeritus of Wesleyan University, which has recognized him with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.

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