Samford University awarded Pellegrino Medals to New York medical ethicist Daniel P. Sulmasy and California theological and bioethics professor Karen Lebacqz during the annual Healthcare Ethics and Law Institute (HEAL) conference Friday, April 17.

Drs. Sulmasy and Lebacqz were recognized for their contributions to healthcare ethics. The medal is named for Dr. Edmund D. Pellegrino, professor emeritus of medicine and medical ethics at Georgetown University Medical Center and the first recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities.

Samford has awarded Pellegrino Medals annually to health care professionals and educators for contributions to healthcare ethics since the HEAL program began in 2001.

Sulmasy holds the Sisters of Charity Chair in Ethics at St. Vincent's Hospital, Manhattan, N.Y., and serves as professor of medicine and director of the Bioethics Institute of New York Medical College. He is the author of four books on medical subjects and numerous articles in medical philosophical and theological journals, and edits the journal Theoretical Medicine.

Lebacqz is professor emerita of theological ethics at the Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, Calif. A faculty member at Pacific since 1972, she has written extensively on professional ethics, bioethics and ethical theory. Her writing includes five books and numerous articles in scientific journals and church magazines.

Sulmasy and Lebacqz were featured speakers at the HEAL conference, which focused this year on the intersection of faith and ethics in health care. The HEAL conference is sponsored annually by Samford's McWhorter School of Pharmacy, and is designed to help Alabama institutional ethics committees of all levels with some of today's most pressing healthcare ethics and law issues and problems. The program draws committee members, physicians, nurses, pharmacists, chaplains, administrators and others interested in ethical decision making in health care.