 Medicine,
Culture and Religion: Live Kidney Transplantation
in Pakistan
A free public lecture and
book signing by
Dr. Farhat Moazam
Oct. 24, 2007 - noon
Monsanto Auditorium,
Bond Life Sciences Center
University of Missouri-Columbia
Moazam is the founding
chair and professor at the Centre of Biomedical
Ethics and
Culture at Sindh Institute of Urology and
Transplantation in Karachi, Pakistan. A
pediatric surgeon trained in the United
States and Pakistan, Moazam was founding
chair and professor of the Department of
Surgery and Associate Dean of Postgraduate
Education at the Aga Khan University Medical
College in Karachi. She also is a fellow
with the Institute of Practical Ethics and
a visiting professor at the Centre for Humanism
in Medicine at University of Virginia, where
she earned an M.A. in Bioethics.
A
graduate of Dow Medical College in Karachi,
Moazam completed her training and certification
in general and pediatric surgery in the
United States. She was a faculty member
in the departments of surgery and pediatrics
at University of Florida for several years,
later returning to Pakistan. In 2000, Moazam
returned to the U.S. to pursue a doctorate
in religious studies at University of Virginia,
with a focus on Islam and cross-cultural
ethics.
Moazam
works with the World Health Organization
and has spoken internationally on research
ethics, bioethics education, transplantation
ethics, the transnational organ trade and
international guidelines for tissue and
organ transplantation.
About
the book
 Moazam's
book, "Bioethics and Organ Transplantation,"
is an ethnographic study of live, related
kidney donation in Pakistan, based on participant-observer
research conducted at a public hospital.
The narrative is both a description of renal
transplant cases and the cultural, ethical
and family conflicts that accompany them,
and an object lesson in comparative bioethics.
"An
important contribution to cross-cultural
bioethics. (This) rich ethnographic study
of living kidney donation in Pakistan pays
particular attention to who is asked to
donate and whose donation is accepted, to
the cultural and religious context of professional,
familial, and individual decision-making,
and to gender roles. … Enthusiastically
recommended as a model of ethnographic bioethics."
- James F. Childress, director of the Institute
for Practical Ethics and Public Life, University
of Virginia
"Offering
a unique contribution to the literature
on interpretations of organ donation within
Islam, Moazam deftly exposes a diversity
of views, sketching the tensions
between fatawa which prescribe both duties
to save human life, and duties to respect
the sacredness of the body." - American
Journal of Transplantation
"(The book) is more
than an account of comparative medical ethics.
It is an insider's story of how modern medicine
can be made to work successfully in traditional
societies where the demands of religion
and extended families are central."
- New Scientist
A discussion and book signing
follows the lecture, which is free and open
to the public.
Monsanto
Auditorium, Bond Life Sciences Center
 Sponsored
by the MU Center on Religion & the Professions.
For more information, call (573) 882-2770
or e-mail whiteab@missouri.edu.
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