Psychosocial and Ethics Community of Practice (PSECOP)
2024-2025 Executive Committee
Chair: Jody Jones (2026)
Co-Chair: Carrie Thiessen (2026)
Past Chair: Elisa Gordon (2026)
Board Liaison: Shelley Hall (2025)
Kristy Engel (2025)
Laura Kimberly (2025)
Ming Hwei Yek (2025)
Olivia Kates (2026)
Megan Urbanski (2026)
Early Career Member-at-Large: Maggie Jones-Carr (2025)
Interim Staff Liaison: Melissa Patterson (mpatterson@myast.org) and Andria White (awhite@myast.org)
2023-2024 Activities
- Collaborate with WHCOP to investigate gender disparities in transplant care.
- Collaborate with multiple COPs to investigate issues related to cognitive functioning and health literacy in organ transplantation.
- Invite professionals from transplant centers across the US to discuss issues regarding cannabis use in organ transplant candidates/recipients as part of an AST Controversies Conference.
- Discuss transplant ethics issues with transplant professionals through Ethics in Transplant webinars.
- Complete Caregiver Toolkit Project and publish toolkit.
- Examine ethical issues in xenotransplantion.
- Establish and sustain a Speakers Bureau that aims to identify and promote junior, early career professionals to help junior professionals learn.
- Offer Research Grants to foster ethics research.
- Provide input on OPTN/UNOS policy proposals on routine basis.
- Advocate for prisoners to receive meds (collab with Pharmacy COP).
- Establish consortium among multiple transplant programs to perform big data analysis of post-transplant psychosocial outcomes.
- Increase membership and engage members through virtual activities and marketing.
- Offer two travel grants to ATC 2024.