Cfp: "Translating Bioethics and Humanities," Annual Meeting, American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, Washington DC, October 15, 2009.

Medicine relies on myriad translations: discoveries at the laboratory bench translated to the bedside, innovations in clinical care translated to medical practice and practitioners, and complex technological interventions translated for patients and families making medical decisions. Simultaneously, disciplines must learn how to "speak each other's language" in order to make a meaningful impression on clinical care and health policy. These translations bring both opportunities and challenges. Thresholds of translation, liminal spaces, engender power and danger. In translational medicine, for example, the potential for true innovation is balanced with risks of miscommunication and harm. Interdisciplinary discourse has the potential to create bridges and synergy among radically different viewpoints rather than to expand chasms of influence and meaning. We invite scholars to address the issues of translation in the medical humanities and bioethics. Whether translational work involves bringing ethical theory to the bedside, art and literature to the hospital ward, silenced voices to the mainstream, or basic science to clinical care, proposals that move across discursive thresholds of context are welcomed. 2009 Program Planning Committee: Anne Drapkin Lyerly, MD MA, Co-Chair, Duke University Medical Center Toby Schonfeld, PhD, Co-Chair, University of Nebraska Medical Center Julie M Aultman, PhD MA, Northeastern Ohio University Inmaculada De Melo-Martin, PhD, Weill Medical College of Cornell University Contact the Program Planning Committee at programcommittee@asbh.org Visit the conference webpage here: http://www.asbh.org/meetings/annual/index.html.