FEATURE

Lewis Cohen, MD,  Recipient of Guggenheim Fellowship and Rockefeller Scholarly Bellagio Residency Award

Dr. Lewis Cohen, Department of Psychiatry, was awarded a prestigious fellowship in the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation's 84th annual competition. The 190 fellowship winners, with awards totaling $8,200,000, were chosen from a group of more than 2,600 artists, scientists, and scholars. The Guggenheim Fellowship will be presented on May 7 in New York City at a reception that will include awardees from this and past years.

Cohen will use the fellowship during a 6 month sabbatical, starting September 2008, to complete a book, No Good Deed: Allegations of Murder in the Medical Community, that will look at healthcare professionals on the frontlines of the collision between the palliative care and the sanctity-of-life movements.

Catalyst for Cohen’s Book Was a Case at Baystate Medical Center

Cohen, Director of Renal Palliative Care, interviewed two Baystate nurses who were accused by a colleague of murdering a patient after her dialysis was discontinued. Over the past 2 years, with support from the Greenwal Foundation, a bioethics organization, he has interviewed approximately 20 other similarly accused nurses and doctors from around the country. His book, intended for the general public, will be the first to explore the impact of criminal accusations on medical practice.

Bellagio Residency Program Named for Italian Estate Where Recipients Attend 1 Month Retreat

The Bellagio residency program offers influential scholars, artists, writers, scientists, policymakers and other professionals from around the world the opportunity to pursue ideas and to engage others in their work.. Dr. Cohen’s project during his residency will be researching and writing a chapter on the international perspective of the palliative medicine conflict described in No Good Deed.

Cohen Praises Baystate Medical Center and His Colleagues for Support

Cohen claims he is: “levitating with joy” over receiving the two prestigious awards, saying they will provide him “the resources to venture into uncharted terrain and cross over the borders that separate psychiatry, nephrology, bioethics, nursing, and law.”

In addition, he wants to acknowledge the support of Baystate during his 23 years here, saying that not only has the Health Science Library collaborated with him on all his research, but that Drs. Hal Jenson, Loring Flint and Ben Liptzin and the rest of his colleagues in the Psychiatry Department have helped him with encouragement, time and funds.