Constantine "Kosti" Psimopoulos, MEd, MA, current student in the Master of Science in Bioethics degree program, was recently assigned as Co-chair of the Literature and Medicine Affinity Group at the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH). The group features creative and critical works of physician-writers, scholars, and medical humanists; and is devoted to exploring the intersections between literary and medical knowledge and understanding.
As a co-chair, one of his main responsibilities is to plan the affinity group's annual meeting during ASBH's Annual Conference in Baltimore, MD on October 11-14, 2023. He also curates the group's listserv, reviewing and approving all posts that go out to hundreds of members across the country. Among his favorite historical pieces of literature he recently shared is Ars Moriendi, meaning the "Art of Dying," a popular 15th century work on comfort and practical instruction to the dying person and their family. Kosti writes,
"I have a fond interest in literature broadly defined—my wife Calliope also having influenced me the last two decades as she is a professor of literature—but also through the specific lens focused on the cultural/historical context of Ars Moriendi and their reception in modern medicine and bioethics. Furthermore, the notion of somatic identities and how the body or our bodies, especially when it comes to human performance and the cyborgean dimension (athletes with disabilities who use prostheses) affect (or affected by) health and disease are narrated and represented in visual and material texts."
He feels inspired and humbled, saying that the Master of Science in Bioethics (MBE) degree program at Harvard Medical School prepared him and his cohort well—with both breadth and depth in bioethics so that their voices, praxis, and narratives can have a direct impact on bioethics as a field and at the national level. He hopes to represent his cohort and the MBE program proudly in his new role with ASBH, which he sees primarily as service and a mission.