University of New England

American medicine's powerful influence on the American dream is the topic of author Carl Elliott's April 28th Crosley Lecture

More and more Americans are using drugs and medical technology to make themselves more attractive, happier and better performers, according to Carl Elliott, M.D., Ph.D.

Ethics scholar and author Dr. Elliott will address this issue in his lecture “American Medicine Meets the American Dream” at noon on Friday, April 28, 2006 in Room 6, Blewett Hall on the University of New England’s Westbrook College Campus in Portland.

The 2006 Crosley Lecture is free and open to the public.

“There is nothing new about the American pursuit of happiness. But how are we to understand the steady incorporation of medicine into that pursuit?,” asks Dr. Elliott. “Over the past half-century American doctors have begun to use the tools of medical technology not merely to make sick people better, but to make well people better than well. From Botox, Viagra and Propecia to antidepressants, breast augmentation and sex-reassignment surgery, vast numbers of Americans now deploy the tools of medical technology to transform themselves, ward off shame and social stigma, and achieve self-fulfillment. Why do we feel so uneasy about these drugs and therapies even as we embrace them? What has drawn American medicine into the pursuit of the American dream?”

Elliott has written widely on ethical issues, including his most recent book Better Than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream (2203) and for high-profile publications such as Atlantic Monthly. In 2004, he was co-editor of Prozac as a Way of Life.  He is professor in the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota. He also teaches in the school’s medical school and philosophy department.

Dr. Elliot earned his medical degree (M.D.) from the medical University of South Carolina and his doctorate from Glasgow University in Scotland. He has also taught at universities in Canada, Zealand and South Africa.

The Crosley Lecture
The Crosley Lecture in Ethics has been given since 1984. The purpose of the lecture series is to bring distinguished scholars to the University of New England to address ethical issues in contemporary life.

The UNE Crosley Lecture is an annual endowed lecture created to honor the Rev. Marion Crosley and his wife, Mehitable Adelia Swift Crosley. The Rev. Crosley was a Universalist minister who lived in Portland from 1885 to 1889 and served on the board of the Westbrook Seminary, which later became Westbrook College, which merged with the University of New England in 1996.

Over the past 20 years, the Crosley Lecture Series has stimulated students, faculty and other members of the Maine community to think about topics in ethics such as a world-wide ethical system, corporate conscience, genetic engineering, patients' rights and physician-assisted suicide.

(Press release issued March 17, 2006)