SPH Dedicates Memorial to Late Professor.
SPH Dedicates Memorial to Late Professor
SPH colleagues, family and friends unveiled the memorial in the Talbot Lobby on Friday, Feb. 28, to honor Michael Grodin, former professor of health law, bioethics & human rights, who passed away in 2023.
Nearly two years to the day after Professor Michael Grodin’s passing, his colleagues, family and friends gathered in the Talbot Lobby for the unveiling of a memorial honoring his long devotion to the practice of compassion.
The centerpiece of the simple, evocative memorial is a Tibetan singing bowl on an unadorned wooden pedestal, accompanied by a plaque that explains the significance of the bowl in Grodin’s medical practice and his academic endeavors.
As the founding director of the Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights, Grodin used the bowls in stress-reduction exercises for refugees from Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, the Middle East, and, notably, Tibetan monks who escaped torture and repression in their homeland. The latter encounters helped sustain Grodin’s long interest in Buddhism, Eastern medicine, and other alternative therapies to help care for ethnically and culturally diverse populations.
Grodin was also a professor of health law, bioethics & human rights who often used the clear, enduring tones of the singing bowls at the start of classes to help students center their thoughts and to create moments of calm amid the stress of academic life. His walking meditation sessions for students, usually held during the frenetic crunch times ahead of finals, started with focused breathing and the pure, mind-clearing sound of the bowls.
He was also professor of family medicine and psychiatry at the Boston University Chobanian & Avdesian School of Medicine, and the founding director of the Project on Medicine and the Holocaust at the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies.
In his melding of East and West, Grodin maintained a delicate balance between science and spirituality, understanding that both were often critical to the mental and emotional well-being of his patients and students.