Join us for the 31st Annual Flanigan Lecture presented by the Center for Practical Bioethics

Reflections from an Imperfect Art: Jazz, Medical Ethics, and the Moral Practice of Medicine
with Patrick T. Smith, PhD

When: November 12, 2025

Reception with live jazz and refreshments at 6:00 PM; Lecture begins at 7:00 PM

Where: Gem Theater, 1615 E 18th St, Kansas City, MO 64108

Free and open to the public, Donations welcome

Parking:

Due to ongoing construction in the 18th and Vine district, 18th St. will be closed from The Paseo to Woodland through the end of 2025.

To access the Gem Theater

From north of 18th St: Take The Paseo to 17h Terrace. There is free parking available in the lots north of the Jazz Museum. Park and walk south on Vine. Cross 18th and turn left to the front door of the Gem. This path is wheelchair accessible. Do not attempt to cross 18th at Highland, this route is closed to pedestrians.

From South of 18th: There is limited street parking south of 18h street. Vine and Highland south of 181n St. are currently inaccessible to pedestrian traffic. To access the Cem from the south, walk north on Highland to the back corner of the Gem and turn left into a well-lit, level, but grassy alley.

At the end of the alley, turn north towards 18th street. There are five steps, so this pathway is not wheelchair accessible.

As a distinctively original African-American art form, jazz was born out of contexts marred by various forms of oppression and economic exploitation. Many of the motifs of this genre of music can serve as guiding metaphors for the ethical life. This talk explores the relationship of jazz, understood as more than music, to the broad work of bioethics and how these can help us reimagine the moral practice of medicine.

About the Speaker, Patrick T. Smith, PhD

Patrick T. Smith, PhD is an associate research professor of theological ethics and bioethics at Duke University Divinity School and an associate professor in population health sciences at Duke University School of Medicine. He is a Senior Fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke where he directs “Capacious Minds,” a program aligned with the university provost’s initiative on Free Inquiry, Pluralism, and Belonging. Prior to this role, he served as the director of the bioethics program at the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, and the History of Medicine at the Duke School of Medicine from fall 2021 to spring 2025. He is President-Elect of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, an associate editor for the American Journal of Bioethics, and a member of the Hastings Center Fellows Council.

Patrick also worked professionally for eight years as the ethics coordinator for Angela Hospice Care Center in Livonia, Mich. During some of that time he served on the Ethics Advisory Council for the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization and as a board member for the Hospice Palliative Care Association of Michigan.

In his training as a philosopher, Patrick is especially committed to exploring the close and often forgotten links between bioethics, public health, community engagement, the arts, and the pursuit of health justice. He often considers and applies in his work how jazz music concepts might inform our approaches to professional ethics and our common life together.

Reflections from an Imperfect Art

Jazz, Bioethics, and the Moral Practice of Medicine