Sister Carol Keehan, president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Healthcare Association of the United States, will give a talk at Emory University on "Challenges for Catholic Health Care in a Complex World," at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 20, at Glenn Memorial Auditorium.
Tickets are free but must be reserved in advance. The lecture is sponsored by the Aquinas Center of Theology and Emory's Candler School of Theology.
"One of six Americans in a hospital is treated at a Catholic facility," says Phillip Thompson, director of the Aquinas Center. Among the issues Sister Keehan is expected to address in her lecture, says Thompson, are:
How does Catholic healthcare maintain its identity?
What are the economic, social political and other challenges to Catholic healthcare?
How does Catholic healthcare meet the economic challenges of the world while maintaining its commitment to compassionate care and Catholic ethical principles?
Will there be a distinctive Catholic healthcare system in the next century?
Sister Carol will speak specifically on provisions of the new legislation at a keynote lecture at the annual conference of the Health Care Ethics Consortium of Georgia and the Center for Ethics at Emory. That talk, titled "The Politics of Justice: The Nation’s Healthcare Obligations and the Role of the Affordable Care Act," is scheduled at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, March 21 at the Emory University Conference Center. Admission to the lecture is free, but rsvp is requested by emailing hcecg@emory.edu.
Sister Carol was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2010 and has been on Modern Healthcare's list of "100 Most Influential People in Healthcare" several years, having topped the list in 2007. She has won numerous awards from hospital associations and medical groups for her efforts to secure universal healthcare, compassionate patient care and support for healthcare workers.
In 2010, she was instrumental in the passage of the Affordable Care Act, with President Barack Obama singling her out for praise at the passage of the bill. Sister Carol also has been criticized by some bishops at the United States Catholic Conference and other traditional Catholic groups for not having supported sufficient contraception mandate exemptions in the healthcare legislation for organizations such as Catholic hospitals and universities.
For more information on Sister Carol's visit, contact Phillip Thompson at pthomp8@emory.edu, 404-550-9046.
For information on the Healthcare Ethics Consortium of Georgia annual conference, contact Kathy Kinlaw, kkinlaw@emory.edu, 404-727-2201.