- Email: [email protected]
John Williams
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The interview
John Williams “
John Williams was born in Vancouver, Canada. He spent 6 years training to become a priest before switching to an academic career path that led to a PhD in religious studies from the University of Toronto. He taught religion at Memorial University in St John’s, Newfoundland for 13 years until a sabbatical at the Clinical Research Institute of Montreal extended to a 7-year stint as principal research associate. He became Director of Ethics at the Canadian Medical Association in 1991, and held that post until assuming an identical position with the World Medical Association, a Genevabased non-governmental organisation, on Aug 4, 2003. He is married, with three adult children, who are keen to visit their parents at their new apartment in FerneyVoltaire, France.
Wayne Kondro e-mail: [email protected]
838
t was a way to save the He also quickly found himself world and kind of save launched on two research yourself”, John Williams tracks: one that involved says of his decision to enrol at bioethics and the other religious the Seminary of Christ the influences on international King in Mission, British development programmes. Columbia, Canada. Yet the He went on to work at the same idealism that lured him to Centre for Bioethics at the a Catholic seminary in the early Clinical Research Institute of 1960s convinced him to Montreal (CRIM), where he abandon the calling before began survey work that would being ordained, despite having eventually lead to the 1994 obtained an undergraduate publication of Bioethics in philosophy degree, spent a year Canada. In 1991, he became as a novitiate with the Basilians Director of Ethics for the and another in theological Canadian Medical Association studies at the University of (CMA) and over the next Windsor, Ontario. Williams 12 years, he helped to craft fled, in “disillusionment” and CMA’s policy on such issues as out of conviction that he was more suited to an academic “An important aspect of the life, and did a PhD in work I’ve done at the CMA, religious studies at St and I think that will carry over Michael’s College. “I with the WMA, is consultation thought I could live my life and consensus building” and realise my ideals better outside the institutional church than inside it.” euthanasia, assisted human That idealism has also reproduction, confidentiality, landed the 60-year-old in the and human organ new position of the World transplantation. It isn’t a life Medical Association’s Director suited to the leisurely rhythms of Ethics. Although the job of academe, he notes. “In the leaves little time for pondering policy area, it’s really boom, big ontological questions, it’s boom, boom. You have to not that far removed from work very quickly and theological studies, he says. synthesise a lot of material and “There’s so much human rights you can’t wait ’til it’s perfect. and development associated You have to do the best you with healthy medicine. It’s a can and be satisfied.” nice way to finish off my As Canadian liaison to the career.” World Medical Association Williams’s career has (WMA) since 1991, and a included a 13-year rise to member of several WMA policy professor of religious studies at working groups, he says it Memorial University, St John’s, seemed natural to accept Newfoundland, where he WMA’s offer of Director of became involved in bioethics. Ethics. Among his immediate At a time when practical ethics duties will be fine-tuning policy was sniffed at by academics, he papers on relations between helped to develop the doctors and the pharmaceutical curriculum for an ethics course industry; continuing care; and at Memorial’s medical faculty advanced directives for and to become the first nonconsideration at WMA’s doctor on the Royal College of annual meeting this month. Physicians and Surgeons of One of the thorniest ethical Canada’s committee on ethics. issues facing the WMA is
I
revision of the Declaration of Helsinki’s provision on continuing care for participants in drug trials, especially in the developing world. Williams believes research participants should be entitled to continuing care. “A lot of exploitation has taken place. Drugs are tested over there. They work, so drugs are sold for huge profits and people there get nothing.” But his Socratic training quickly surfaces. There are all manner of “practical and theoretical problems” associated with the provision of a new drug to trial participants for as long as they need it, he notes. Is it the obligation of the researcher, the drug company, the participants’ home country, or the nation that gives regulatory approval? “There’s no one place where you can say the buck stops here.” He adds that he hasn’t an agenda to bring to his work at the WMA. That’s not his style. “I’m there to kind of serve the organisation and to coordinate the work. My views aren’t necessarily reflected in anything I do. An important aspect of the work I’ve done at the CMA, and I think that will carry over with the WMA, is consultation and consensus building. That’s really my job— to try to forge consensus on these issues.” Among long-term consensus-building on his plate is development of an ethics-training manual for use in developing countries. He relishes the task, having spent time in 1999 at South Africa’s University of Cape Town developing a correspondence ethics course that’s now obligatory for doctors seeking recertification. “It’s the first place in the world where there’s mandatory CME [Continuing Medical Education] in ethics,” he says proudly.
THE LANCET • Vol 362 • September 6, 2003 • www.thelancet.com
For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet.
The interview
John Williams “
John Williams was born in Vancouver, Canada. He spent 6 years training to become a priest before switching to an academic career path that led to a PhD in religious studies from the University of Toronto. He taught religion at Memorial University in St John’s, Newfoundland for 13 years until a sabbatical at the Clinical Research Institute of Montreal extended to a 7-year stint as principal research associate. He became Director of Ethics at the Canadian Medical Association in 1991, and held that post until assuming an identical position with the World Medical Association, a Genevabased non-governmental organisation, on Aug 4, 2003. He is married, with three adult children, who are keen to visit their parents at their new apartment in FerneyVoltaire, France.
Wayne Kondro e-mail: [email protected]
838
t was a way to save the He also quickly found himself world and kind of save launched on two research yourself”, John Williams tracks: one that involved says of his decision to enrol at bioethics and the other religious the Seminary of Christ the influences on international King in Mission, British development programmes. Columbia, Canada. Yet the He went on to work at the same idealism that lured him to Centre for Bioethics at the a Catholic seminary in the early Clinical Research Institute of 1960s convinced him to Montreal (CRIM), where he abandon the calling before began survey work that would being ordained, despite having eventually lead to the 1994 obtained an undergraduate publication of Bioethics in philosophy degree, spent a year Canada. In 1991, he became as a novitiate with the Basilians Director of Ethics for the and another in theological Canadian Medical Association studies at the University of (CMA) and over the next Windsor, Ontario. Williams 12 years, he helped to craft fled, in “disillusionment” and CMA’s policy on such issues as out of conviction that he was more suited to an academic “An important aspect of the life, and did a PhD in work I’ve done at the CMA, religious studies at St and I think that will carry over Michael’s College. “I with the WMA, is consultation thought I could live my life and consensus building” and realise my ideals better outside the institutional church than inside it.” euthanasia, assisted human That idealism has also reproduction, confidentiality, landed the 60-year-old in the and human organ new position of the World transplantation. It isn’t a life Medical Association’s Director suited to the leisurely rhythms of Ethics. Although the job of academe, he notes. “In the leaves little time for pondering policy area, it’s really boom, big ontological questions, it’s boom, boom. You have to not that far removed from work very quickly and theological studies, he says. synthesise a lot of material and “There’s so much human rights you can’t wait ’til it’s perfect. and development associated You have to do the best you with healthy medicine. It’s a can and be satisfied.” nice way to finish off my As Canadian liaison to the career.” World Medical Association Williams’s career has (WMA) since 1991, and a included a 13-year rise to member of several WMA policy professor of religious studies at working groups, he says it Memorial University, St John’s, seemed natural to accept Newfoundland, where he WMA’s offer of Director of became involved in bioethics. Ethics. Among his immediate At a time when practical ethics duties will be fine-tuning policy was sniffed at by academics, he papers on relations between helped to develop the doctors and the pharmaceutical curriculum for an ethics course industry; continuing care; and at Memorial’s medical faculty advanced directives for and to become the first nonconsideration at WMA’s doctor on the Royal College of annual meeting this month. Physicians and Surgeons of One of the thorniest ethical Canada’s committee on ethics. issues facing the WMA is
I
revision of the Declaration of Helsinki’s provision on continuing care for participants in drug trials, especially in the developing world. Williams believes research participants should be entitled to continuing care. “A lot of exploitation has taken place. Drugs are tested over there. They work, so drugs are sold for huge profits and people there get nothing.” But his Socratic training quickly surfaces. There are all manner of “practical and theoretical problems” associated with the provision of a new drug to trial participants for as long as they need it, he notes. Is it the obligation of the researcher, the drug company, the participants’ home country, or the nation that gives regulatory approval? “There’s no one place where you can say the buck stops here.” He adds that he hasn’t an agenda to bring to his work at the WMA. That’s not his style. “I’m there to kind of serve the organisation and to coordinate the work. My views aren’t necessarily reflected in anything I do. An important aspect of the work I’ve done at the CMA, and I think that will carry over with the WMA, is consultation and consensus building. That’s really my job— to try to forge consensus on these issues.” Among long-term consensus-building on his plate is development of an ethics-training manual for use in developing countries. He relishes the task, having spent time in 1999 at South Africa’s University of Cape Town developing a correspondence ethics course that’s now obligatory for doctors seeking recertification. “It’s the first place in the world where there’s mandatory CME [Continuing Medical Education] in ethics,” he says proudly.
THE LANCET • Vol 362 • September 6, 2003 • www.thelancet.com
For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet.