Biomedical Ethics Grand Rounds - The Medium is the Message: Documenting the Story of Dax Cowart

In this presentation, Dr. Jones will describe in some detail the elements of the documentary, Please Let Me Die, to show that the engagement with and assessment of Dax Cowart's story by bioethicists has been largely determined by the medium in which they first encountered it. Please Let Me Die (1974) tells the story of a twenty-six year old burn victim, Dax Cowart, who insisted that his right to die be acknowledged and respected both during the course of his lengthy treatment and long after his successful rehabilitation.

Therese (Tess) Jones, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Medicine and associate director of the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. She is editor of the Journal of Medical Humanities and assistant editor to the Literature, Arts and Medicine Database. Publications include the book, Sharing the Delirium: Second Generation AIDS Plays and Performance, articles on the humanities in medical education for Academic Medicine.