Join the Friends of the Desmond-Fish Library at the Desmond-Fish Library in Garrison on Monday, January 15th at 2 p.m.  as they welcome Dr. Virginia A. Brown as their featured speaker for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Dr. Virginia Brown, a bioethicist and research scholar, will be exploring the topic “Injustice in Health and its Relationship to Physical Death: “Getting King’s Words Right.”

Dr. Virginia Brown is a research scholar in social justice and population health. She joined The Hastings Center in Garrison in September 2023 from the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School where she served as an assistant professor in the department of population health in the division of Community Engagement and Health Equity and as the associate director of the Liberal Arts Honors program in the College of Liberal Arts.

“I am a public sociologist,” she explains, “and we look at ethical issues in health and health care as public challenges rather than personal troubles.” Her recent work has focused on protecting the autonomy of persons living with serious mental illness using psychiatric advance directives. 

Dr. Brown began her work in health care ethics at Howard University’s College of Medicine where her interest in the intersection of race, ethics, community involvement, and social justice evolved. At The Hastings Center, Dr. Brown continues her research by expanding her inquiry to include attending to the question, “What does bioethics owe justice?”  

This is a free event sponsored by the Friends of the Desmond-Fish Library and is open to the public. To attend in person register here or attend via zoom by registering here.