New Dean of Medicine Sees Need for Ethics Institute
UC Irvine’s new dean of the College of Medicine said in an interview Monday that he would like to see an “ethics institute” established as an adjunct to the medical school.
“I think there are major problems that doctors face every day that have to do with the ethics of medicine,” said Dr. Edward J. Quilligan. “I would dearly love to see a major ethics institute located right here at this university. I think it’s a logical place for one, because I think (ethics) is a major area of medicine.”
Quilligan, 61, takes over as new UCI dean of the College of Medicine on Friday. He also will assume a newly created position at UCI, vice chancellor of health sciences.
Before coming to UCI, Quilligan held medical school department chairmanships at several universities, including the department of gynecology and obstetrics at Yale University.
Quilligan said some Eastern colleges, including Georgetown University’s College of Medicine, already have formal academic study programs about ethical issues facing doctors. But he said he knows of no such program associated with any West Coast university.
The need is great, he added. “We face problems today that we never thought of a few years ago. These are problems such as who gets the artificial hearts and the artificial kidneys. What about in vitro (test-tube) fertilization, in vivo (in-body) fertilization?
“All of these major problems I would like to see scholars devoting their thinking and discussion and activities to. There should be a place where we could have people come here and spend a year or two, in the company of other scholars, and supported by a top-flight library, discussing issues of ethical import.”
Quilligan said he would like to see UC Irvine launch an ethics institute that would be used by, and available to, not only medical students, but students and workers in allied fields.
Entire Campus
“I would like to see it involve the entire campus, not just the medical school,” he said. “The field crosses so many lines that it sort of needs the ‘institute’ designation, rather than being a department of ethics. This would be for anyone who is interested.”
Quilligan said that while “there are some exceptionally fine ethics groups on the West Coast,” he knows of no West Coast medical school with a separate institute for the study and debate of ethical issues facing medicine. “It’s not a novel idea on my part; I just perceive a need,” he said.
Rapid scientific advances force modern doctors to make life-or-death decisions in matters never dreamed of only a few years ago, he said. “Certainly the medical students and the residents and all of us could benefit from discussion of ethical issues and education about these issues.”
Asked if he could recall an ethical issue that he faced during his medical career, Quilligan said that once he had a life-or-death situation involving a woman who was a devout member of Jehovah’s Witnesses. That faith forbids blood transfusions, he said, but the patient was in critical need of blood.
Did Not Want Blood
“She did not want to take any blood,” Quilligan said. “She was perfectly aware. Her husband was there, he was aware and he didn’t want her to take any blood. Then she got infected, and she was extremely anemic. We knew we could help her if we could give her some blood, but she didn’t want it. She was wide awake and in command of her facilities.
“My ethical dilemma was whether to go to court and try to force her to have a transfusion. It was a severe--and I must say, traumatic--ethical dilemma. My resolution was a personal one: that the patient was in full command of her faculties and that she had the right to make that choice. I didn’t feel I could intrude upon her religious and her ethical beliefs with my own, and so we let her go.
“She died.”
Quilligan was interviewed Monday before a campus reception held in his honor by Chancellor Jack W. Peltason, acting medical college Dean Gerald D. Weinstein and their wives.
Quilligan, robust looking and quick to smile, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and grew up in Columbus, where he obtained his medical degree from Ohio State University.
Taught Nine Years
After leaving Ohio State, Quilligan taught nine years at Case Western Reserve University Medical School in Cleveland. He later became a professor at UCLA’s School of Medicine and chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Harbor General-UCLA Medical Center. Between 1966 and 1969 he was chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at Yale University, then became associate vice president for health affairs at USC.
In 1980, Quilligan became professor and director of the division of maternal-fetal medicine at UCI’s College of Medicine. He left in 1983 to become chairman of the obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin. In 1985 he became chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at the UC Davis Medical Center, a position he held until moving to Irvine last week with his wife Betty to live in campus housing at UCI. They have six grown children, ranging in age from 26 to 39.
‘Aware of the Issue’
Having previously been at UCI, when the then-undecided question of a university hospital was a topic of community debate, Quilligan smiled and said, yes, he was fully aware of the “hospital issue.”
The issue was whether the City of Irvine’s proposed hospital should be built on or off the UCI campus. Quilligan’s predecessor, Dr. Stanley van den Noort, strenuously argued for an on-campus hospital, but the decision by Irvine, Orange County and university officials was to build a private hospital off campus.
“I’m very interested in the new hospital,” Quilligan said. “As to where it will be built, that’s a moot question now.”
Quilligan noted that he is not “new” to Orange County, since his career included three previous years on the UCI campus. “I really like Orange County,” he said. “I love its weather and its people.”
