Relaxing on the sunny deck of the Montgomery House, John Fletcher, this term's Montgomery Fellow, reflected on his time at the College and medical practices.
Fletcher, a professor of religion and biomedical ethics and the director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Virginia, will be in residence at the College until July 12. He said he will be spending his remaining time on campus meeting with professors and students and playing golf.
In addition to meeting privately with students who want advice on medical school, Fletcher said he would also be talking with those who seek career guidance regarding bioethics and genetics.
Welcome to the Big Green
Fletcher was initially scheduled to arrive on campus to lecture for College Course 25, which studies the ethical, legal and social implications of the Human Genome Project.
He already knew he was coming to Dartmouth to lecture but being a Montgomery Fellow came later and was a "pleasant" added bonus because of the plushness of the Montgomery House, he said.
Since his arrival on campus last Sunday, Fletcher has been booked solid with a full schedule of lectures and speeches. Besides Wednesday's public speech, Fletcher has lectured in Biology 23: Molecular Biology and twice in College Course 25.
Fletcher also spent time lecturing visiting professors from other schools who are at Dartmouth as part of the Faculty Institute on Ethics and Genetics in conjunction with College Course 25. Fifty professors from other colleges and universities are attending the faculty institute.
Fletcher is on the advisory board for College Course 25. This interdisciplinary National Institute of Health-funded course is intended to serve as a model for similar courses in other academic institutions.
However, it has not been all work and no play for this term's Montgomery Fellow. Fletcher said he has also enjoyed the good weather on Dartmouth's golf course playing against other members of the Faculty Institute on Ethics and Genetics.
Religion Professor Ronald Green described Fletcher as "one of the most insightful and balanced ethicists."
"We are very excited to have him up here for this reason," Green said. "We felt the students would appreciate him as well."
Students will really profit by his presence, he said. "He knows what he's talking about."
The future of the project
And Fletcher has much to talk about the Human Genome Project.
Fletcher said the effects of the Human Genome Project will eventually be incorporated into the regular practice of medicine.
"I think that as the genome project rolls on that genetic knowledge and genetic information will become" increasingly part of standard medicine, Fletcher said.
He described a day in the future when every individual might have their entire genome -- a person's genetic code -- encoded on a disk that doctors could refer to for diagnosis.
A good deal of fear persists towards genetics due to misunderstanding and the history of human eugenics, Fletcher said. He added that "slowly and surely" people will regard genetic information as a normal part of medical practice.
Fletcher expressed concern that people are starting to use genetics to address cultural and societal concerns, such as sex selection, instead of disease diagnosis and prevention.
Fletcher said prevention of such practices was "just a matter of guarding the edges of the field of genetics and [preventing] some dangers like the danger of letting sex selection become a practice."
Although the project is a primary part of Fletcher's field of study, he plans to pursue other interests as well in the future.
Next on the agenda
Fletcher will spend the rest of the summer preparing to leave the Center for Biomedical Ethics to start the "Program of Education and Training in Clinical Ethics" at the Center for Continuing Education in Virginia, he said.
Fletcher has been the center director for 10 years and said it was "time to move on."
He will devote only 50 percent of his time to his new program and the rest of his time to family and his golf and tennis games, he said.
Fletcher will also spend the extra time completing two books -- an autobiography and an update of his earlier book "Coping with Genetic Disorders."
Fletcher helped establish the field of bioethics in the 1960s and 1970s, was a founding fellow of the Hastings Center, an institute for bioethics study in New York, and was the first chief of the Bioethics Program of the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in 1977.
With Sociologist Dorothy Wertz, he has conducted two international surveys of medical geneticists and their approaches to ethical problems in screening, counseling and prenatal diagnosis. He has given Congressional testimony on in vitro fertilization, human genetic engineering and advance directives.
The Montgomery Fellowship, which was initiated and funded by the late Kenneth Montgomery '25, brings prominent figures in the academic and non-academic world to Dartmouth to interact with students, give lectures and conduct research.
