9 November 2012 – Medico-Legal Aspects of End of Life Care Study Day, Brighton

Jenny Kitzinger presented on ‘Brain injury and disorders of consciousness: Family experiences of decisions to withdraw Life Sustaining Treatments’, to the Medico-Legal Aspects of End of Life Care Study Day, Brighton & Sussex University Hospitals

9 November 2012 – Coventry & Warwickshire NHS Trust Clinical Ethics Forum, Coventry
Celia Kitzinger discussed our research findings at this forum, reflecting on ‘Best Interests: Family Perspectives, Coventry & Warwickshire NHS Trust Clinical Ethics Forum.

15 September 2012 – Speech and Language student training
Jenny Kitzinger gave an invited lecture to SLT students at the University of Wales on ‘The importance of voice for patients who can not speak for themselves – reflections from families’

2-5 July 2012  – ESRC Research Methods festival

Julie Latchem and Jenny  Kitzinger presented on ‘Using focus groups to capture what is important in neurological long term care.’ ESRC Research Methods festival, Oxford, UK.

16 June 2012 – Y-theatre company and school students, London
Jenny Kitzinger presented on ‘Neurotechnologies, ethics and the human brain’- a talk designed to inspire debate among the young people involved in developing a play with the Y-theatre company, London. Jenny served on the advisory group of this Wellcome Trust funded initiative to develop engagement with emerging neuro-technologies.

18 May 2012 – Neurology Grand Round, Oxford
Celia Kitzinger co-presented with CDoC associate, Professor Derick Wade (Oxford Centre for Enablement), at this discussion of the permanent vegetative state at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

18 April 2012 – Manchester School of Law, Manchester
We presented on ‘Withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatments from patients with severe brain injuries – the Mental Capacity Act 2005’

10 February 2012 – Sixth Conference on Medical Ethics and Law, London
Jenny Kitzinger ran a workshop on: ‘Personal narrative in medical ethics education’, Sixth Conference on Medical Ethics and Law, Institute of Medical Ethics, London

8 February 2012 – Brighton & Sussex Medical School, Brighton
We presented on: ‘Severe Brain Injury & Serious Medical Decision-Making: 
family experience’ to an audience of clinicians from intensive care, palliative care and rehab medicine.

8 & 9 September 2011 – see  Wellcome Trust funded ‘Catastrophic Brain Injury Symposium –  Medical Humanities and decision-making’ – see working paper: Kitzinger (2010) Wellcome Symposium WP

A symposium organised by Jenny Kitzinger – with the support of a Wellcome Trust Symposium award  – brought together leading practitioners in the fields and a multi-disciplinary team of academics to  discuss how to develop a medical humanities research agenda in this area.  Presentations and talks included:

  • The Mental Capacity Act and the law re decision-making (Prof. Luke Clements)
  • Independent Mental Capacity Advocates’ experiences of decision-making (Ms. Sue Lee)
  • Family experiences of decision-making (Prof. Jenny Kitzinger and Prof. Celia Kitzinger)
  • The MCA and decision-making in intensive care (Prof. David Menon)
  • A neurosurgeon’s perspective on decision-making (Mr. Richard Hatfield)
  • The role and powers of the Court of Protection (District Judge Gordon Ashton)
  • The principles of Autonomy – a philosopher’s perspective (Prof. Wayne Martin)
  • Best Interests: definition and debates – a bioethicist’s perspective (Prof. Bobbie Farsides)
  • Translating science, medicine and technology into ethical practice (Prof. Clare Williams)
  • The challenges for economic evaluation in the area of coma and consciousness (Prof. Nancy Devlin)
  • The MCA and developing RCP guidelines on the treatment of people with disorders of consciousness (Prof. Lynne Turner Stokes)
  • Medical Ethics and decision-making from the perspective of the British Medical Association (Dr. Julian Sheather)Kitzinger (2010) Wellcome Symposium WP

September 2011 – Yale University, Centre for Interdisciplinary Bioethics

Celia Kitzinger was visiting fellow at the Yale/Hastings Centre in New York, and gave a series of lectures, including presenting our research to the Yale School of Medicine as part of Yale University’s professional development accredited courses for the John D Thompson Hospice Institute.

 25 May 2011 – Cambridge Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities Research Group, University of Cambridge

Celia and Jenny Kitzinger presented: ‘Disability Rights and the vegetative and minimally conscious state’, Cambridge Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities Research Group, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge.

22 July 2011 – Health and the Media Symposium, Bath

Jenny Kitzinger presented a Keynote: ‘The Living Dead: coma in film’ at this symposium at the Film and Media Department at Bath Spa University.

14 Sept 2010 – The Centre for Biomedicine & Society, King’s College, London

Celia and Jenny Kitzinger presented ‘Ethics, heroic medicine, and the law: A case study of engaging with the Mental Capacity Act on behalf of our sister, Polly‘, The Centre for Biomedicine & Society, King’s College, London.

16 Nov 2010 – Centre for the History of Science, Technology & Medicine, & Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, Manchester University

Celia Kitzinger and Jenny Kitzinger presented: ‘An accident of history? The treatment of those in vegetative and minimally conscious states – an auto-ethnography of medical intervention, consent and the Mental Capacity Act’, Centre for the History of Science, Technology & Medicine, & Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, Manchester.

13 December 2010 – Centre for Disability Research, School of Health & Medicine, Lancaster University 
Celia Kitzinger and Jenny Kitzinger presented ‘Disability Rights and Disorders of Consciousness: One Family’s Experience’, Centre for Disability Research, School of Health & Medicine, Lancaster University.