Mission Week Keynotes

The 2021 Mission Week theme was Expanding Our Circle of Compassion, focusing on our mission to serve those at the margins of society.

Events included the traditional Mass of the Holy Spirit on Creighton’s Omaha campus and, for the first time, on the recently opened Phoenix campus. It also included the dedication of the St. Ignatius Chapel on the Phoenix campus.

Rev. Kevin FitzGerald, SJ, PhD, PhD presented his talk, “Walking with the Excluded: The Significance of the Creighton Approach to Integrating the Humanities with Science and Health Care,” focused on the second of four Universal Apostolic Preferences animating the work of the Jesuits worldwide — Walking with the Excluded.

The Rev. Kevin T. FitzGerald, SJ, PhD, PhD serves as the inaugural chair of the Department of Medical Humanities in the School of Medicine. FitzGerald is the John A. Creighton University Professor, and an associate professor in the School of Medicine, Department of Medical Education, at Creighton. He received a PhD in molecular genetics and a PhD in bioethics from Georgetown University. His research efforts focus on the utilization of reflection in medical education, the investigation of abnormal gene expression in cancer, and on ethical issues in biomedical research and medical genomics.

FitzGerald is a founding member of Do No Harm, a member of the ethics committee for the March of Dimes, and a member of the Genetic Alliance IRB. In addition, he currently chairs the Ethics Advisory Council for the Geisinger Health System MyCode biobank project. In addition, Fr. FitzGerald has been a corresponding member of the Pontifical Academy for Life since 2005, and a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Culture since 2014.

Collmann, J., FitzGerald, K. T., Wu, S., Kupersmith, J., & Matei, S. A. (2016). Data management plans, institutional review boards, and the ethical management of big data about human subjects. In J. Collmann & S. A. Matei (Eds.), Ethical reasoning in Big Data (pp. 141–184). Springer International Publishing AG. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28422-4_10

Conley II, W. K., McAdams, D. C., Donovan, G. K., & FitzGerald, K. T. (2017). Beneficence In utero: A framework for restricted prenatal whole-genome sequencing to respect and enhance the well-being of children. American Journal of Bioethics, 17(1), 28–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/15265161.2016.1251655

Šulekova, M., & Fitzgerald, K. T. (2019). Can the thought of Teilhard de Chardin carry us past current contentious discussions of gene editing technologies? Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 28(1), 62–75. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963180118000397

Tractenberg, R. E., Russell, A. J., Morgan, G. J., FitzGerald, K. T., Collmann, J., Vinsel, L., Steinmann, M., & Dolling, L. M. (2015). Using ethical reasoning to amplify the reach and resonance of professional codes of conduct in training big data scientists. Science and Engineering Ethics, 21(6), 1485–1507. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-014-9613-1

Wu, S., FitzGerald, K. T., & Giordano, J. (2018). On the viability and potential value of stem cells for repair and treatment of central neurotrauma: overview and speculations. Frontiers in Neurology, 9, 602–602. https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2018.00602