30th Annual Conference on Bioethics
Saturday, November 14, 2026 | 8:30 a.m.–3:00 p.m.
Four Points by Sheraton Detroit Novi | Virtual Option Available
What does healthcare owe the patient who is afraid to walk through its doors? Nationally recognized bioethicist Mark Kuczewski, PhD, HEC-C, will take up that question in his keynote address, “I Lift My Lamp – Healthcare’s Moral Center in a Time of Mass Deportation,” at the milestone 30th Annual Conference on Bioethics presented by the Michigan State Medical Society (MSMS).
His title comes from the closing lines of Emma Lazarus’s “The New Colossus,” inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty. Doctor Kuczewski will ask what healthcare’s moral commitments require of physicians and institutions as immigration enforcement reaches into clinics and hospitals. Fear of deportation is keeping some patients away from care they need, and clinicians are increasingly asked to navigate questions about immigration status, enforcement activity on hospital grounds, and their duties to patients, colleagues, and students. Doctor Kuczewski will explore how medicine can hold to its core mission of caring for every patient who comes through its doors.
Few voices are better positioned to lead this conversation. Doctor Kuczewski has served as the founding director of Loyola’s Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics since 2000. He is a past president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities and a Fellow of the Hastings Center and is widely known for his work on medical professionalism and social justice. He co-created “Sanctuary Doctoring,” an approach that equips physicians to help immigrant patients who fear seeking care feel safe doing so and has been recognized nationally for his advocacy on behalf of immigrant patients and DACA-recipient medical students.
For three decades, the MSMS Conference on Bioethics has given Michigan physicians a place to work through the hardest questions in medicine. This year’s theme, “Ethics, Politics, and Medicine: Navigating Ethical Challenges in an Increasingly Divided Society,” looks at what happens when the care of an individual patient is shaped by political conflict outside the exam room. In addition to the keynote, sessions will address:
- Disagreement over which treatments are owed to patients who will not recover
- Evolving models of care in Trisomy 13 and 18
- The religious identity of hospitals after mergers
- Surrogate decision-making under Michigan law, including MI-POST and informal surrogates
Who should attend: Physicians, nurses, residents, and students, medical educators, ethics committee members, bioethicists, and healthcare administrators.
CME: Approved for 5.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™ and fulfills the LARA requirement for medical ethics.
To register, click here.
The conference is sponsored by the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation.
Need assistance? Contact the MSMS Education team at 517-336-5790 or educationdept@msms.org.
Statement of Accreditation
The Michigan State Medical Society (MSMS) is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
AMA Credit Designation Statement
The MSMS designates this live activity for a maximum of 5.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.