Yale School of Medicine (YSM) students, and other members of the YSM community, now have about 150 medical ethics-related books available to them. This is thanks to Susan V. Lewis (Duffy), MD, generously donating books to YSM’s Program for Biomedical Ethics (PBE) from the collection of her husband, the late Thomas P. Duffy, MD, professor emeritus of medicine (hematology).
“Our house was filled with books and Tom read extensively and broadly, every day of his life,” Susan shares. It was important to her, she says, to find “generous” homes for Tom’s books, which she describes as meaning locations that are as “accessible and giving as he was to colleagues and students.”
Tom’s interests were varied, Susan explains, “so that for him the realm of medical ethics was connected to the areas of philosophy, religion, and social/political concerns of the day, but always grounded in the everyday practice of medicine.” She continues, “I think he would have been pleased anytime a student picked a book off the shelf in YSM and sat down over a cup of coffee to read of and enter those challenging realms.”
PBE Director Mark Mercurio, MD, professor of pediatrics, is grateful for the gift—and Tom’s valuable and steadfast support of the PBE. “Dr. Duffy had a long-standing interest in medical ethics and was a trusted advisor to me, and to many other faculty and others, in matters of medical ethics. He was a strong supporter of the Program for Biomedical Ethics at YSM, from the time of the Program’s formation well over a decade ago.”
The books are located in the student lounge on third floor of E.S. Harkness Memorial Hall, in the midst of YSM’s Medical Education offices. Each book from the collection has a book plate stating: “Donated to the Program for Biomedical Ethics at Yale School of Medicine from the Library of Thomas P. Duffy, MD.”