Fall 2007 Graduate Student Spotlight
Patricia Morris, a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Sociology and Anthropology, received her bachelor degree from Rhodes College in 1998 and her Masters from 
Northeastern University in 2003. She completed a year long ethnographic study of euthanasia in veterinary medicine for her doctoral dissertation this past June. Below is a brief outline of her dissertation project. As a result of this research, the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, which administers this award, named Patricia as one of the 30 Fellows for the 2007-2008 academic year. The Charlotte Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation fellowships are provided to Ph.D. candidates who will complete their dissertations during the fellowship year and are designed to encourage original research in the areas of either ethics or religion in fields across the humanities and social sciences. The fellowship awards $19,000 for the term of one academic year of dissertation writing and to put this award in perspective, just 7 percent of this year's applicants were selected as Fellows. Before receiving this award, as an SGA Patricia has taught a variety of courses in the department consistently since the summer of 2003 including Introduction to Sociology, Research Methods, Gender in a Changing Society, and Statistics. Her areas of research and teaching interest include Methods (both Quantitative and Qualitative), Sociology of Work and Professions, Medical Sociology, the Study of Human/Animal Relationships, Gender, and the Secondary Socialization of Medical Professionals.
Few issues in veterinary medicine today seem to present more sources of ethical uncertainty or moral stress for novice veterinarians than the practice of euthanasia, yet little scholarly research has sought to explore decision-making among veterinarians. Like other sociological studies of medical ethics, this project is interested in the ways in which young professionals define, approach, and eventually resolve ethical questions in their work. Researchers interested in descriptive ethics research ask two basic questions: 1) What do people claim as their moral norms? 2) How do people behave when it comes to moral problems? While sociologists have direct theoretical interest in analyzing the role that ethics play in medical organizations, both sociologists and philosophers draw on empirical research defining the values, norms, and attitudes of medial professionals concerning medical-ethical issues that interact with the everyday realities of medical practice. However, despite unique ethical issues in veterinary medicine, few social science researchers have examined this population. The primary objective of this research is to outline the ways in which veterinarians identify, make sense of, and manage ethical dilemmas surrounding the medical practice of euthanasia. In light of considerable disagreement among veterinary experts and the general public regarding what is considered ethical rationale for euthanasia, how do novice veterinarians define for themselves what constitutes “legitimate” reasons for euthanasia? How do personal and occupational values inform the life and death clinical decisions of veterinarians? To what extent, if at all, does their ethical stance toward euthanasia change during their first year in clinical practice? How do veterinarians reconcile what they see as unethical or unreasonable demands of clients with their own ethical codes? Data to address these questions will be derived from ethnographic methods relying heavily on longitudinal interviews and participant observation of post-graduate interns in their first year of practice at two major veterinary teaching hospitals in the Northeast, but will also include interviews and observations of more experienced veterinary professionals and educators.