Course Faculty:

Chris Hackler, Ph.D. Director of the Division of Medical Humanities at UAMS. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from The University of North Carolina and studied medical ethics at Indiana University on a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 1991 he was elected Chair of the Association of Faculty in the Medical Humanities of the Society for Health and Human Values, and in 1998 he received the SHHV's Distinguished Service Award. He has edited two books, Advance Directives in Medicine (1989) and Health Care for an Aging Population (1994), and has contributed papers to a number of books and journals in philosophy and health care ethics.

D. Micah Hester, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Medical Humanities and Pediatrics at UAMS and clinical ethicist at Arkansas Children’s Hospital.  He received his doctorate in philosophy from Vanderbilt University and taught in the School of Medicine at Mercer University for five years.  He has authored, co-authored, or co- edited five books and numerous journal articles, including an account of morally grounded physician-patient relationships, Community as Healing (2001). Among other projects he is currently authoring on a book concerning ethical issues surrounding end-of-life care and editing a book to help educate hospital ethics committees

Craig H Gilliam, BSMT, (ASCP) C.I.C. Director of Infection Control at Arkansas Children's Hospital.   Mr. Gilliam received his Bachelor of Science in Medical Technology from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He is Director of Infection Control at Arkansas Children's Hospital. He has worked in infection control for 25 years with an emphasis on strategies to reduce catheter bloodstream infections in pediatric critical care units.  In 2004, he was team leader when ACH was recognized by Child Health Corporation of America (CHCA) as recipient for RACE for Results: REDUCING CATHETER RELATED BLOODSTREAM INFECTIONS THROUGH REPEATED RAPID CYCLE IMPROVEMENTS. In 2007, he co-authored an article in the British Medical Journal on reduction of catheter bloodstream infections in the ICU. In 2003 he became a member of the hospital Biological Agent Response Team (BART) to address emerging pathogens and risk of infection. He is co-chair of the Pandemic Influenza Planning Task Force at ACH.

Rick Hogan, J.D. General Counsel for the Division of Health in the Arkansas Department of Health & Human Services.  Mr. Hogan regularly represents over two thousand public health employees and officials in state and federal courts.  Mr. Hogan spent fifteen years in the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office, during this time, he served with five different Attorney’s General.  Mr. Hogan represented several state agencies and state officials including former Governor Bill Clinton as well as Arkansas State Police, Arkansas Department of Corrections, the Department of Pollution Control and Ecology, the Arkansas Department of Health and the Arkansas Board of Nursing.  Further, Mr. Hogan is experience in Title VII  employment litigation including the Americans with Disabilities Act, Fair Labor Standards Act and the Family Medical Leave Act.  Mr. Hogan has participated in more than fifty Federal trials of which more than half were jury trials.  He has defended the State of Arkansas in two of the largest class action litigation cases ever bought in Arkansas Federal Court.  The results from these trials ended in saving the State of Arkansas millions of dollars.  Hogan received his law degree from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 1980 and a Master of Public Health degree from Tulane University in 2002

Kemal Kutait, Jr., M.A.S.  Director of Risk Management for the Medical College Physicians Group at UAMS. He holds a master's degree in Administrative Studies from Oklahoma State University and has published widely in the areas of risk management, informed consent, confidentiality, and documentation.

Steve Metzer, M. D.  Associate Professor of Neurology at UAMS.  Dr. Metzer is a board-certified, Staff Neurologist at Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System (CAVHS), and a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology.  He has served on the ethics committee at CAVHS, is an associate of The Hastings Center, and is a member of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, where he completed Institute’s Intensive Bioethics Course in 2002.

Dan-Vy Mui, M.D.  Director of Psychiatry Consultation-Liaison services at UAMS. In 1999, she received her M.D. from Washington University, where she went on to complete a Psychiatry residency and earned a membership to AOA. After completing a Consultation-Liaison fellowship at UAMS, she joined the faculty in January 2004 and holds a joint appointment to the Department of Psychiatry and the Department of Emergency Medicine.

Laura Smoller, Ph.D. Associate Professor of History, Adjunct Associate Professor of Medical Humanities at UAMS.  A Little Rock native, Dr. Smoller graduated from Hall High School and attended Dartmouth College.  She received her Ph.D. in History from Harvard University in 1991 and taught 6 years at Stanford University before returning home to Little Rock.  Dr. Smoller teaches courses on the history of disease, the history of apocalyptic thought, and the history of magic and science for UALR. She is the author of History, Prophecy, and the Stars: The Christian Astrology of Pierre d’Ailly (Princeton University Press, 1994) as well as numerous articles on late medieval astrology, eschatology, and miracles.  She is currently working on a book entitled The Saint and the Chopped-Up Baby:  The Cult of Vincent Ferrer and the Religious Life of the Later Middle Ages, work that has been supported by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.