The Medium is the Message: Documenting the Story of Dax Cowart

GRAND ROUNDS IN BIOMEDICAL ETHICS

FALL 2005

The Medium is the Message:

Documenting the Story of Dax Cowart

Therese (Tess) Jones, Ph.D.

Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics

University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio

Tuesday, December 6, 2005

12 pm — 1 pm

Room M-104, School of Medicine

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. Conspicuously absent in most of the response from bioethicists to that story is an analysis of the medium in which it is performed and presented: documentary. In this presentation, Dr. Jones will describe in some detail the elements of Please Let Me Die to show that the engagement with and assessment of Dax's story by bioethicists has been largely determined by the medium in which they first encountered it.

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. Dr. Jones is the author of the book, Sharing the Delirium: Second Generation AIDS Plays and Performance.

The Biomedical Ethics Grand Rounds are presented on the first Tuesday of each month from 12 pm to 1 pm in Room M-104. ***Please note that the October 4, 2005 and November 1, 2005 grand rounds will now be held in Room M-106. Please contact the Center for Biomedical Ethics at 650-723-5760 for further information or visit our website at http://scbe.stanford.edu.