7:00 p.m. “Maximizing The Quality of Our Lives As We Get Older: What’s Important to Us?” will be University Synagogue member and Medical Ethicist Dr. Miriam Piven Cotler’s topic of Shabbat services, led by Rabbi Rachlis and Cantor Braier. As we consider our quality of life now and in the future, chances are that we will need medical or nursing care. If we can’t make our own choices, who do we want to speak for us? How can we ensure our values will be respected? These ethical questions will be the topic at services when we will discuss a range of options and recommendations for seniors and their families when responding to illness, while maximizing the quality of life for us all.

Miriam Piven Cotler Ph.D. has been teaching and doing medical ethics since 1986. She is also a clinical ethicist at several hospitals. Dr. Cotler received an MSPH in 1980 and a Ph.D. in 1986 from the UCLA School of Public Health where she later served as a Visiting Professor. She has also served as an Associate Professor in the UCLA School of Medicine, as the Distinguished Scholar in the Bioethics Institute graduate program at Loyola Marymount University, she is Professor Emerita at CSUN where she served as Chair of the Health Sciences Department and as Director of the Center for Healthcare Policy and Ethics.

In addition to her teaching and clinical consultations, Dr. Cotler has served as a consultant to the California Medical Association Council on Ethical Affairs. She is also a member of the Bioethics Steering Committee of the International Project for Teaching Medical Ethics of the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and she serves on several editorial boards. Dr. Cotler has co-chaired the Los Angeles County Bar Bioethics Committee, and for several years, she chaired two regional Institutional Review Boards with over 200 clinical trials. Dr. Cotler has over 75 peer reviewed publications and has presented invited papers in Haifa and Eilat Israel; Geneva, Switzerland; Quito, Ecuador; and China at the invitation of the medical association.

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