Please join us for this lecture series celebrating 30 years of the Centre for Ethics in Medicine.
Our next speaker is Dr Shengyu Zhao, Research Fellow at the Centre for Biomedical Ethics, National University of Singapore, who will talk about 'Everyday ethical challenges in palliative care: A case study in China'.
Dr Shengyu Zhao obtained her PhD from the Centre for Ethics in Medicine at the University of Bristol, where her doctoral research examined ethical challenges in palliative care in the Chinese mainland.
Her research combines empirical and normative approaches to bioethics, with a particular focus on family involvement in medical decision-making, patient autonomy, and informed consent in palliative and end-of-life care. Drawing on Confucian moral philosophy and relational ethics, her work investigates how cultural values, family relationships, and practical circumstances shape ethical challenges in clinical practice, and how healthcare professionals might respond to these challenges. She is particularly interested in bridging empirical findings and ethical theory to develop context-sensitive approaches to clinical decision-making.
Her current research also extends to emerging ethical questions surrounding artificial intelligence in healthcare, healthy longevity, and the evolving roles of technology and interpersonal relationships in care. Across these areas, she is interested in understanding how ethical principles can be interpreted and applied in ways that are responsive to the complexities of real-world healthcare.