When faced with illness and suffering, can we retain a sense of meaning and flourishing? Or is our wholeness dependent on our health, our bodies, our fragile and fallible physiologies?

On May 15, 2019, Veritas @ Stanford will explore these questions with Drs. Ray Barfield and BJ Miller, two physicians shaping our understanding of wholeness and meaning in the face of profound suffering.

Ray Barfield is a pediatric oncologist at Duke University, director of Duke’s pediatric palliative care program, and professor of Christian philosophy at Duke Divinity School. BJ Miller is a palliative care physician at UCSF, senior director and former executive director of Zen Hospice Project, a triple-amputee, and a leading figure on death, dying, and end-of-life care. Dr. Lucy Kalanithi—Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at Stanford; widow of Paul Kalanithi, author of When Breath Becomes Air—will moderate the discussion.

Together, these three will guide the Stanford community through complex questions of human brokenness, and in doing so, help us better understand what it means to be whole.