Myra Christopher
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Transcript of Myra Christopher
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Perspectives Fal l /Winter 200542
Myra Christopher tells a story: the story
of a young person who dropped out
of college because her family moved to a
new city. Her kids got older and suddenly
continuing college becomes intriguing again.
Soon, the lure of learning becomes powerful.
Professors become mentors, then friends.
Finally, a once-elusive college degree is
accomplished. The graduate is recommended
to lead a new organization, in a role perfectly
suited to her talents.
Just another “college pays dividends”
story? Not here. Because the person is Myra
Christopher (B.A., ’85), and the organiza-
tion is the Center for Practical Bioethics,
recognized today as a Kansas City leader
and a national voice for finding real-world
solutions to complex issues in health care.
Involved as executive director since 1985,
Christopher also became president and CEO
in 1994. The center’s staff of 20 operates
from the 29th floor of Town Pavilion
tower downtown.
In those fledgling years in a small ground-
floor office, though, she was just a full-time
volunteer and the center was just a bit more
than a great idea with a budget of $7,000.
A key to the growth is the clarity of
the center’s stated mission: “A society in
which the dignity and health of all people
is advanced through ethical discourse and
action.”
It’s the center’s obligation, Christopher
says, to elevate and monitor conversations
about health care decision-making, and to
respond to ethical issues that bubble up from
today’s medical care possibilities. What are the
issues surrounding early stem cell research?
How do we keep terminally ill people from
suffering spiritual, psychological, financial
and social distress? How are patients’ right
maintained and communicated when they
can no longer speak for themselves?
Today, the center’s four focus areas are
clinical and organizational ethics (empower-
ing health care professionals and advocating
for patients’ rights), aging and end of life care,
life sciences and research ethics (critical issues
in life sciences and medical technology), and
disparities in health care, including access to
reasonable care by all people.
The connecting event for Christopher’s
career path was her mother’s death. During
her two-year battle with stomach cancer,
Christopher’s mother chose not to be
terrified by the dying process. She faced her
impending death with dignity, even taking up
quilting after her terminal diagnosis.
“She died her way, a self-directed death,”
Christopher says, at home, with a caring
physician and “surrounded by friends and
family.”
That approach brought focus to her
passion for people.
She says she knew then that she would
spend the rest of her life helping families in
similar situations. What she didn’t have was
an outlet.
“I thought my promise was to be in the
hospice field. But a friend encouraged me to
attend UMKC,” she says.
While still a mom in Johnson County,
Kan., Christopher began a seven-year
odyssey of UMKC coursework.
“I’d get the kids off to school and then
hang out there,” she says. “UMKC gave me
an opportunity to reflect on my experiences.
They treated me like a peer.”
Classes on death and dying helped fuel
her desire for knowledge, but it was through
a philosophy class taught by Professor Hans
At the Center of Dignity
The death of a loved one shaped Myra Christopher’s future. How she used it to influence national policy is an inspiration for the rest of us.
By Michael JohnsonDesign by Debra Phillips
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Fall /Winter 2005 Perspectives 43
Uffleman that really connected Christopher’s
passion for human dignity and understanding
with a career possibility.
“Hans was fascinating!” she says. “The
hardest, most challenging teacher ever. Hans
became my mentor.”
The fledgling field Uffleman was interested
in was called bioethics, a movement seeking
to help people understand their health
conditions and options in an era in which
expanding medical technology began to
present extraordinary choices for both
physicians and patients.
Uffleman, Christopher notes, imagined a
place where practitioners in medicine, law,
philosophy and other fields could collaborate
to address the ethical implications faced in
a medical world in which a natural process
– death – became only once choice in the
life equation.
One of the first such cases to hit the
national scene was Missouri’s own Nancy
Beth Cruzan case in 1991, which went all
the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2005,
the Terry Schiavo case and the debate about
stem cell research brought ethical issues for
end-of-life care and research implications to
the forefront of everyday Americans.
And the Center for Practical Bioethics
was already there, with a 20-year reputation
of bringing together those with opposing
viewpoints to address such difficult issues.
Myra Christopher has had her hand on the
rudder all that time.
“We knew very early on Myra was the
person we wanted to convince to come on
and lead the center,” says Mary Beth Blake, a
center co-founder and Chair of the Health
Care Law Group at Polsinelli, Shalton Welte
Suelthaus law firm. “The center would not
be the vital force in our community, state
and nationally without Myra’s energy and
devotion to its purposes.”
Bill Colby, the Kansas City attorney who
argued the Nancy Cruzan case before the
U.S. Supreme Court, says the CPB “is the
gold standard in bioethics.”
He became aware of the center through
the Cruzan case and has been a supporter
since that time. “The center has led the social
dialogue around the hard questions we face
as medical technology advances.”
“She’s been able to attract a wonderful
cadre of people who share the vision and
have been able to take the center to new
levels,” Blake says.
Myra Christopher emphasizes that her
goal, as the center’s name implies, is finding
practical applications for the issues the
center addresses.
“There is such a need for this organiza-
tion,” she says. “We’re a group of
social engineers who are willing to fail …
if we think what we’re doing can make a
difference.”
More information: www.practicalbioethics.com
“As a culture, we have typically lost the interest in and capacity for suffering with others ... Widespread erosion of sympathy produces unnecessary suffering, robbing dying persons of comfort and dignity.”
Life’s End: Technocratic Dying in an Age of Spiritual Yearning
David Moller, Ph.D.Director, Office of Medical Humanities
School of Medicine
David Moller is passionate about teaching soon-to-be doctors just how important a large dose of personal understanding is in the lives of patients.
Moller, who is director of the School of Medicine’s Sirridge Office of Medical Humanities, believes, like Myra Christopher, that death in today’s society has become something to be universally feared, rather than faced as a natural consequence of the human experience.
“Dying has become medicalized, feared,” he says. “Our quality of life is being diminished because of it.”
Moller came to UMKC in 2004, pretty much as a result of working with a colleague at Indiana University who not only was a UMKC Medical School alumnus, but a recipient of the school’s “Take Wing” award.
Of course, that meant the colleague was deeply familiar with the school’s emphasis on bringing more human interaction to medical school education. Through the Medical Humanities program, UMKC’s medical students have mandatory courses in various aspects of teaching this concept, even as a first-year student.
“What I was trying to do at Indiana was happening in Kansas City,” Moller says. “Many schools offer something, but this kind of rigorous requirement is innovative, unique and trendsetting.”
To his students, he's often referred to as “Dr. Death” because of his various courses on death and dying. It’s sort of a compli-ment. By the end of the year, because of the understanding he provides into life and mortality, he hopes they remember him as “Dr. Life.”
Learn more about the Program of Medical Humanities at www.umkc.edu/medicine, or pick up Moller’s book, Life’s End: Technocratic Dying in an Age of Spiritual Yearning.
Humanities: Woven Into
the Med School Life
“The Center puts “practi-
cal bioethics” into action.
Reasoned, real-world
responses to ethically complex
situations and, ultimately,
the greatest peace of mind
possible for those who must
decide. Our model blends
strategies and strengths
from the bioethics, health
decisions and quality improve-
ment programs.”
From “How the Center Works: Raising and Responding to Ethical Issues”
By Michael JohnsonDesign by Debra Phillips