This month we are joined by Dr. Karen Meagher, Assistant Professor of Health Justice and Bioethics at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University. Recently, Dr. Meagher was the Associate Director of public engagement in the Biomedical Ethics Research Program at the Mayo Clinic. Her research focuses on public health ethics and social implications of advances in microbial and human genetics. She has a PhD in philosophy from Michigan State University. From 2012-2016 she worked as a senior policy and research analyst on the staff of president Barak Obama’s Presidential Commission for the study of bioethical issues.
Listen in as Dr. Meagher shares her career journey starting with her undergraduate interest in the philosophy of science and social influences of how science gets done. She describes how she was drawn to the growing field of public health ethics, which blossomed in the early 2000s with increasing publications and dedicated journals. Dr. Meagher describes her Virtue Ethics orientation to public health ethics and shares the inside scoop on what it is like to serve on a Presidential Commission.
Later in her career, embedded with Mayo clinic biobank, Dr. Meagher describes her experiences with public engagement with community and how bioethicists can be a bridge between basic scientists and the community when grappling with difficult ethical dilemmas like those dealing with broad consent for future research with banked specimens.
Finally, we delve into a discussion of how Dr. Meagher’s work on antimicrobial resistance led her to engage in concepts of One Health Policy, which recognizes the interdependence of people, animals and the environment. She highlights the importance of breaking down silos between researchers in different sectors and how bioethics can bridge disciplines and create shared moral language, while also centering engagement of communities to help define these problems from different perspectives.
Selected publications of Dr. Meagher’s which were referenced in the podcast can be found here:
Meagher KM. Can One Health Policy Help Us Expand an Ethics of Interconnection and Interdependence? AMA J Ethics. 2024 Feb 1;26(2):E162-170. doi: 10.1001/amajethics.2024.162. PMID: 38306206.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38306206/
Meagher KM, Curtis SH, Gamm KO, Sutton EJ, McCormick JB, Sharp RR. At a Moment's Notice: Community Advisory Board Perspectives on Biobank Communication to Supplement Broad Consent. Public Health Genomics. 2020;23(3-4):77-89. doi: 10.1159/000507057. Epub 2020 May 12. PMID: 32396907.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32396907/
Meagher KM. Considering virtue: public health and clinical ethics. J Eval Clin Pract. 2011 Oct;17(5):888-93. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2753.2011.01721.x. Epub 2011 Aug 11. PMID: 21834841.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21834841/
Meagher KM, Lee LM. Integrating Public Health and Deliberative Public Bioethics: Lessons from the Human Genome Project Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications Program. Public Health Rep. 2016 Jan-Feb;131(1):44-51. doi: 10.1177/003335491613100110. PMID: 26843669; PMCID: PMC4716471.
