Katie Wasson, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy

Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine

email: kwasson@lumc.edu

Katherine Wasson, gained a PhD in Health Care Ethics from the Whitefield Institute, Oxford and the Open University (1998) in England and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and Language (Summa Cum Laude) from Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts (1991).  In 2002 she was selected as one of the first Post-Doctoral Fellows in the Ethics of Prevention and Public Health track of the Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.  The first year involved completing a Master of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland.  She will be joining the faculty of the Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy in July 2008 as an Assistant Professor.  She will be focusing on developing a research agenda, and assisting with the medical student honors program and ethics consultation service.

Dr. Wasson has successfully attracted external funding for research projects including an analysis of human needs and wants in health care, resource allocation and rationing, and death, dying, grief and bereavement.  Her research interests and publications encompass moral decision-making and moral frameworks in medicine and public health, public health ethics, palliative care ethics, end-of-life care, research ethics, equipoise, resource allocation, justice, and direct-to-consumer genetic testing.  She has presented her research at the annual meetings of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, American Association of Public Health, American College of Medical Geneticists, UK Palliative Care Congress and European Association for Palliative Care.

For more than five years, Dr. Wasson worked directly with health professionals as a clinical ethicist with a National Health Service palliative care team in central London and Chief of the Clinical Ethics Service and Assistant Professor in the Department of Critical Care at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and The University of Texas.  For the past ten years, she has been involved in teaching a wide range of junior through senior physicians, nurses and allied health professionals as well as undergraduate and graduate students.

In the USA, she served on five Institutional Review Boards and a clinical ethics committee and was invited to join the Department of Health and Human Services Working Group on the Public Health Impact of Direct-to-Consumer Marketing of Genetic Tests and Services from 2005 – 2006.  In the UK, she served on two national ethics committees and contributed to health policy consultations on care of the dying in the NHS, palliative care for non-cancer patients, futility, and the Conjoined Twins case.  She helped prepare evidence given to the House of Lords Select Committee on Euthanasia in 1993. Dr. Wasson has also received professional media training from BBC producers and co-presented an ethics video for education.

Selected Publications

Wasson K. Medical Ethics in Scott-Brown’s Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, 7^th edition.  London: Hodder Arnold, 2008.

Slieper CF, Wasson K, Ramondetta LM. From Technician to Professional: Integrating Spirituality into Medical Practice. American Journal of Bioethics 7:7, 2007.
 

Wasson K. Altruism and Pediatric Oncology Trials: it doesn’t tip the decision-making scales. American Journal of Bioethics 6:5, 2006.
 

Wasson K, ED Cook, KJ Helzlsouer. Direct-to-Consumer Online Genetic Testing and the Four Principles: an analysis of the ethical issues. Ethics and Medicine 22:2, 2006.
 

Wasson K, ED Cook. Pellegrino and Medicine: a critical revision. American Journal of Bioethics 6:2, 2006.
 

Wasson K. How Do We Address Human Needs and Wants in Health Care? Whitefield Briefing 7:4, 2002.
 

Wasson K. Resource Allocation. Christian Medical Fellowship File 17.  London: CMF, 2002.
 

Wasson K, George RDJ.  Specialist Palliative Care for Non-Cancer Patients: the ethical arguments. Palliative Care for Non-Cancer Patients, edited by Irene Higginson and Julia Addington-Hall. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
 

Wasson K, Tate H, Hayes C. Food Refusal in Older People with Dementia: Ethical and Practical Difficulties. International Journal of Palliative Nursing 7:10, 465-71, 2001.
 

Wasson K, Cook ED. Morality in Medicine: Five Approaches to Ethics. Continuing Medical Education (CME) Bulletin 2:1, 2000.
 

Wasson K. Ethical Arguments for Providing Palliative Care to Non-Cancer Patients. International Journal of Palliative Nursing 6:2, 66-70, 2000.
 

Wasson K. The Child B Case and a Middle Way Model. Whitefield Briefing 3:3, 1998.