Katherine Drabiak JD

02/19/2026

Biology Meets the Future: The Laws of Medicine, Climate, and Cyber Evolution - Union Internationale des Avocats Conference, London, UK, February 2026

01/09/2026

Have you seen ketamine clinics popping up for depression, anxiety, or PTSD? You may see ads promising that it will "improve brain chemistry," "stimulate neuroplasticity," and "repair damage." Patients should know these are *marketing claims* to sell a product in a lucrative $3.41B industry. Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic originally approved for surgery that is designed to produce sedation, altered consciousness, and euphoria - it is also addictive.

Clinics across the USA advertise ketamine as an alternative solution for mental health conditions. Ketamine has expanded into a multibillion-dollar industry, with three delivery models: (1) in-person clinics offering off-label racemic ketamine; (2) clinic visits for esketamine (Spravato); and (3) te...

01/09/2026

After attempted su***de, EMTs and physicians will try to revive the patient. Some legal scholars and clinicians assert we should not intervene, but instead let the patient "complete his su***de" because he wanted to die. Why should physicians intervene, even over patient wishes in these cases?

Historically, EMTs and clinicians intervened to resuscitate patients and provide lifesaving treatment following a su***de attempt. Despite this, the literature ...

01/09/2026

If patients request physician assisted su***de, how should clinical ethicists respond? Should medicine elevate autonomy and patient requests for "death on demand"? How can ethicists respond to patient suffering while upholding the integrity of medicine?

A minority of countries around the world have taken steps to legalize the practice of physician-assisted su***de and/or euthanasia (PAS/E). Proponents frame PAS/E as a means to enhance patient autonomy, reduce suffering, alleviate the burden of illness, and respect patient dignity. Critics of PAS/E,...

01/09/2026

Death can occur naturally, be expedited, or induced on demand. Deciding who lives and how we die is closely tied to exerting control, cultivating meaning, and discerning the value of life. Medicine offers three distinct approaches to death: (1) death is demanded; (2) death is elevated as optimal; or (3) death is a wrong and should be vigorously fought. Who decides when we die, and why does this matter?

By Katherine Drabiak, Published on 01/01/25

01/09/2026

Great American Teach In at Turner-Bartels K8 School, November 2025

08/29/2025

The Palliative Care Friday Chalk Talks are a weekly, 20-30 minute, short-and-sweet, live audience, presentation and discussion, for the entire multidisciplin...

08/07/2025

In July 2025, the New England Journal of Medicine published reports about children born through pronuclear genome transfer (sometimes called Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy or "3-Person IVF"). Scores of media headlines proclaimed the children were "healthy" and labeled this as a "treatment" for parents who want to have children without passing on mitochondrial disease.

This is misleading, because:
(1) Only limited testing was done, so we don't really know if the children are healthy
(2) this procedure is NOT a treatment, but an clinical trial experiment to create children by manipulating genetic material in embryos

Read more here:

By Katherine Drabiak Recently, media outlets around the world have been reporting on children born from pronuclear genome transfer (sometimes called “3-parent IVF,” “mitochondrial donation” or “mitochondrial replacement therapy”) at Newcastle Fertility Center in the United Kingdom. Twent...

08/07/2025

About 2% of all patients in hospitals are declared dead through "brain death." This requires that all functions of the entire brain have irreversibly ceased. However, some physicians were calling to change the standard for death - to declare people dead who were *almost* dead, but still had some neurological functioning. However, mostly dead, is not dead. Read why this matters: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40432411/

06/03/2025

News outlets recently have been reporting the story of Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old pregnant woman declared brain dead in February 2025 when she was nine weeks pregnant. Emory University Hospital has been maintaining supportive measures since that time to allow the fetus to grow, against the wishes of Smith’s family. Headlines are framing this as fallout from state abortion laws, but this is not accurate. Instead, this is a case about laws that govern withdrawing supportive measures for pregnant patients who suffer brain death, and who gets to make those decisions.

As a USF law professor writes, in cases where an expectant mother dies, the family’s choices with regards to the fetus can be complicated and personal.