Crowdfunding for medical care—seeking financial contributions from a large number of donors, often via social networks, to pay medical expenses—is growing in popularity in both the US and Canada. While the practice can have tangible benefits for some patients, it also raises challenging ethical and equity questions at the social level and for individual donors and campaigners. In this lecture, Professor Valorie Crooks will examine some of these questions, identify important directions for ethics-focused research, and discuss what we know about the medical expenses people are seeking to have covered.
Valorie Crooks, PhD, is a Full Professor and health geographer at Simon Fraser University (Canada). She holds the Canada Research Chair in Health Service Geographies and a Scholar Award from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research. She has authored more than 150 articles, chapters, and commentaries and leads a well funded research program that examines health care mobility and access.
Responding: I. Glenn Cohen, JD, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, and Faculty Director, the Petrie-Flom Center.
This event is free and open to the public. Lunch will be provided.
A Harvard or affiliated teaching hospital ID is required to access the Medical School campus. Non-Harvard guests must register and check-in at security to attend.