This Thursday, Oct. 10, Mercyhurst campus will welcome medical ethicist Brendan Minogue, Ph.D., at 4 p.m. in the Mercy Heritage Room for a lecture on the topic of ethics and their place in an increasingly technological society. The event is free and open to the public.

Minogue, who currently serves on the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Youngstown State University, has experience serving on multiple medical ethics boards in hospitals, where he faced the task of coordinating and structuring ethical policies and procedures.

His lecture, titled “Ethics and Technology: Dealing with Unforeseen Consequences,” will discuss why these consequences are not a “new problem” in the medical field, and how to implement existing principals when dealing with so-called “unforeseen” complications and ethical questions.

The presentation will be sponsored by Mercyhurst’s Evelyn Lincoln Institute for Ethics and Society. When asked the importance of providing a lecture such as Minogue’s for students, Stephanie Barnhizer, associate director of the Ethics Institute, wrote “It is part of the Evelyn Lincoln Institute for Ethics and Society to bring light to moral issues in key areas that have an impact on the well-being of society,” citing the “emerging technologies in the medical field” in particular.

“It is vital” she continued, “to have ethical guidelines in place to facilitate good medical outcomes when implementing these new technologies, but it is equally important to anticipate, and be ready to work toward sound decisions, when unexpected consequences result from using these new technologies.”

“Dr. Minogue,” Barnhizer concluded, “will discuss various policies for guiding the use of new medical technologies, with an emphasis on the issue of unexpected consequences resulting from the implementation of such technologies.”

The Evelyn Lincoln Institute for Ethics and Society continues on in the exploration of its three primary ethics tracks of Business, Technology and Environmental Ethics with its sponsorship of Dr. Brendan Minogue’s lecture this Thursday.