In her undergraduate years, Brooklyn Aaron earned a degree in Global Studies, an experience that she described as making her a better person, which has been helpful in her current studies. She’s presently in the midst of her first year on a dual-track as a Masters in Public Health and Religious Studies student.
“My job is to figure out what the good thing is and to do everything in my power to make sure I do the good thing,” Aaron said.
Before coming to Georgia State, Aaron originally started her graduate student journey at the University of Georgia. However, there were opportunities exclusive to Georgia State that convinced her to switch paths.
“I did not initially choose religious studies,” Aaron said.
When she learned of the Wellstar fellowship, it was an opportunity she had to consider.
“There are a very limited amount of bioethics fellowships in the United States,” Aaron said. “When I found it, I reached out hoping that they would accept someone from a different degree program and they don’t.”
So, Aaron reached out to Dr. Molly Bassett, current graduate director and department chair of Religious Studies, to explain her interest in the fellowship. Bassett was able to convince Aaron to apply to Georgia State’s program in order to have a chance of getting the fellowship.
“I applied to the program last minute, got accepted, and ended up getting the fellowship,” Aaron said.
So far, Aaron has enjoyed her time as a Wellstar fellow.
“It’s a fellowship that brings ideas to take religious studies into different areas of public life,” Aaron said. “So in that fellowship specifically, we’re bringing it into the health care system through bioethics.”
Aaron described bioethics as being broken up into three categories. The first is clinical ethics.
“We have clinical ethics where you are going with different ethics consultation cases. So if a patient doesn’t have a surrogate decision-maker available, then we would be consulted to help with that case,” Aaron said. “We also get consulted in do not attempt to resuscitate orders. It’s very case-specific in the clinical setting.”
The second category is organizational ethics.
“We basically look at health care systems,” Aaron said. “Health care systems are massive systems. In any massive system, there are bound to be major potentials for bad things to happen. So we look at ways as an organization to make sure we stick to the values and the mission statement of our organization.”
The final category is research ethics.
“We do less of that at Wellstar, but I am particularly interested in research ethics. We actually just did get an acceptance letter for a publication that I am the first author on for the American Journal of Bioethics,” Aaron said.
Aaron described the American Journal of Bioethics as being a “really high-impact journal”.
“It’s one of the most commonly used in the field of bioethics,” Aaron said. “Me and two other people, the vice president of ethics at Wellstar and one of the clinical ethicists on staff, did a paper on informed consent and organ donor research.”
Their research is important to the field of bioethics and to learning more about an area that not much has been discovered yet.
“We do a lot of research on deceased donor organs, but it gets complicated with living donors, and we need to do more research,” Aaron said. “We need to know how to make living organ donation better and make the organ function longer. But no one knows how to go about it in the most ethical way.”
Aaron is currently working on submitting another publication in which she is also the first author.
That publication is about a study she did with nurse leaders.
“We used a very new ethics education pool and combined it with a lecture,” Aaron said.
Georgia State has helped Aaron prepare for her future in bioethics because a lot of people make their healthcare decisions based on their personal values.
“Religious studies is a great place to be for that because, especially in Georgia, we have a lot of people who make their decisions on their religious and spiritual beliefs,” Aaron said.
One of the reasons that she chose Georgia State for her master’s degree is the unique nature of the religious studies program.
“The coursework in this program is very different than I’ve experienced in other graduate religious studies programs. When they say they have an applied focus, they are not kidding,” Aaron said. “People come in with very different interests. It’s not people who are just interested in religious studies from a historical perspective. It’s people who want to do stuff with this and the courses are geared towards that. There are so many different course offerings.”
The applied focus aspect of the program is her favorite part. Aaron is glad to be able to follow her interests in all of her classes.
After she graduates with her master’s degree, Aaron plans to move into a staff role in bioethics. She pursued this field because of her logical nature and hopes to be able to help her community with her degree.
“We have a small community hospital health system where I live called Tanner Health System,” Aaron said. “I’m really dedicated to my community and the good of my community, so I would love to be able to work there. I wouldn’t mind working at Wellstar, but if I can do good for my community that I’m in every day, I would love to do that.”
Aaron is looking forward to an upcoming opportunity that was presented to her through Georgia State. She’s earned the chance to speak on COVID-19 vaccine allocation, “which is really cool and something master’s students don’t get to do often.”
She shared some advice for prospective students. Her first piece of advice is to always reach out to professors when you need help.
“They’ll respond,” Aaron said. “They want to hear from you.”
Aaron also strongly recommended taking a class with Dr. Kathryn McClymond if the opportunity arises. She explained that McClymond doesn’t teach often, so if she’s offering a course, take advantage of that opportunity.
Overall, Aaron is grateful for her time spent at Georgia State.
“[Georgia State has] prepared me to look at absolutely everything in the world from so many lenses,” Aaron said. “That’s really relevant for ethics, but also everything.”
