Hastings Center News

Hastings President Gives Harvard Commencement Speech to Bioethics Graduates

Mildred Solomon, president of The Hastings Center, delivered the commencement address to Harvard Medical School’s first master’s in bioethics graduates in May. She advised the new bioethicists on how to meet the formidable challenges that they will face: how to offer reasoned judgments “about what the right thing is to do . . . on some of the most vexing issues patients, health care professionals, scientists, and policymakers face in our turbulent and uncertain time.”

Meeting these challenges is not merely a matter of technical analysis; it also involves identifying and weighing values, which are often deeply hidden. “What values one privileges, or doesn’t, is going to matter more and more, because we are in a tsunami of innovation,” she said. Read her remarks here. Harvard commencement speech