The Center for Practical Bioethics is proud to present Screening Bioethics, a webinar exploring bioethics topics in popular media hosted by Kayhan Parsi, JD, PhD and Nanette Elster, JD, MPH.

Breast cancer narratives often invoke terms like survivorship and previvorship. How does popular culture reflect how women interpret their experience of breast cancer or breast cancer risk? In this third episode of the webinar series, Screening Bioethics, hosts Nanette Elster, JD, MPH and Kayhan Parsi, JD, PhD joined by special guests Joanna Rudnick, MA and Cara Texler, MD will examine and discuss relevant ethical issues as depicted in both fictional and documentary film and television.

This 45 minute exploration will be followed by a 15 minute Q&A.

You will be emailed the link to the webinar, hosted through Zoom Webinars, in your receipt of registration. Check your spam/junk folder if you do not receive this to your inbox after registration. No Zoom account is required to access the webinar. A recording of the webinar will be sent to all registered participants after the event concludes.

Email Abby at abbygw@practicalbioethics.org with any problems.

Cara Texler is a physician, clinical researcher, and communication expert with more than 15 years of experience caring for children across the full spectrum of health and illness and navigating conversations with patients, families, and healthcare teams across languages and cultures. Her work explores how communication, storytelling, and the ways we frame illness shape understanding, decision-making, and the human experience of healthcare. She speaks and writes nationally on medicine, communication, and the stories we tell about health and illness. Read her essay, "Am I a Survivor?", here.

Joanna Rudnick is an Emmy®-nominated director and producer whose work spans science, health, society, and the arts, exploring themes of family, identity, and resilience across major streamers and international festivals. Her debut feature, In the Family (POV | PBS), became a widely used resource in medical and ethics education and was broadcast worldwide. Recent directing work includes The Opioid Trilogy (Independent Lens | PBS), a Webby-nominated animated series on addiction and recovery, and Story & Pictures By, along with the short On Beauty. She produced The Coral Rescuers, now playing at major film festivals. Earlier credits include producing Robert Capa in Love and War (Emmy Award), Bill T. Jones: A Good Man (American Masters), and Crossfire Hurricane (HBO). She held long tenures at Kartemquin Films and American Masters (PBS), and holds degrees from Northwestern University and NYU's Science, Health & Environmental Reporting program. Read about her documentary, "In the Family", here.

Nanette Elster, JD, MPH, is the John B. Francis Co-Chair in Bioethics at the Center for Practical Bioethics and Professor at the Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics, Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, where she teaches courses in pediatric ethics, oral health ethics, genetics and ethics, professionalism, and disability ethics. She also has expertise in reproductive ethics. She supervises the graduate program’s master’s and doctoral capstone courses. She has appeared on such media staples as CNN, Good Morning America, the Today Show, NPR and Chicago Tonight. More recently, she has been quoted in various media outlets, such as Forbes, Insider, and BMJ.

She co-edited with Kayhan Parsi Transitioning to Adulthood with Autism: Ethical, Legal and Social Issues which was published by Springer in 2022.

She received her BA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, her JD from Loyola University Chicago School of Law, and her MPH from the Boston University School of Public Health.

Read her blog, "Not a cancer survivor, not a cancer previvor: Am I a cancer preventer?", here.

Kayhan Parsi, JD, PhD, HEC-C, is the John B. Francis Co-Chair in Bioethics at the Center for Practical Bioethics and Professor and Graduate Program Director at the Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics, Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. He is an active educator in the Stritch School of Medicine and also serves on the Loyola University Health System (LUHS) ethics committee and is an ethics consultant for LUHS.

He has interests in clinical ethics, medical ethics education, professionalism and professional ethics, global health and justice, media and bioethics, the history of medicine and bioethics, and autism and neurodiversity. He served as president-elect, president, and immediate past president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) from 2019 to 2025.

He received his BA from Rice University, JD from the University of Houston Law Center, and PhD in medical humanities from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.

Nanette and Kayhan are both ardent consumers of pop culture and are excited about this webinar series “Screening Bioethics.”

The Center for Practical Bioethics is a nonprofit, free-standing and independent organization nationally recognized for its work. Since 1984, the Center has helped patients, families, healthcare professionals, policymakers and corporate leaders grapple with ethically complex issues in medicine and research.  

Our mission - to raise and respond to ethical issues in health and healthcare - requires us to be proactive. To call attention to ethical issues and to develop programs, policies and publications that address them and achieve common ground. The results? Reasoned, real-world responses to ethically complex situations and, ultimately, improved health outcomes and peace of mind.   

Screening Bioethics: Episode 3

Shifting Identities: Popular Depictions of Breast Cancer and Breast Cancer Risk