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MH Conversations and Connections Series (Contemporary Issues in Bioethics) – Lunchtime Seminar
Title: What does it mean to flourish when life is coming to an end?
Date: 5 February 2026 (Thur)
Time: 12:30-1:45 pm HKT
Venue: HKJC-S3 = Seminar Room 3, G/F, The Jockey Club Building For Interdisciplinary Research, 5 Sassoon Road
Registration Link: Click Here
Abstract:
What does it mean to flourish when life is coming to an end? Clinical care at the end of life is often framed in terms of symptom control, functional decline, and loss. In this seminar, I invite a different but complementary perspective: can patients still flourish as life draws to a close, and if so, what might that mean for clinical care? Drawing on philosophical accounts of human flourishing and insights from wellbeing research, I argue that while terminal illness typically limits physical and psychological functioning, it can also bring into sharp focus dimensions of human life that matter deeply to patients—meaning, relationships, reconciliation, moral reflection, and the experience of being valued and known.
Rather than treating flourishing as an unrealistic or inappropriate ideal in palliative contexts, I suggest that our understanding of flourishing needs to be recalibrated for the realities of dying. When this happens, we can better recognise forms of wellbeing that are often overlooked in clinical assessment but frequently reported by patients themselves. I conclude by reflecting on the implications for palliative and end-of-life care, including how clinicians might better attend to these humanistic dimensions alongside symptom management. The talk aims to open space for reflection on how medicine can support not only comfort, but also what makes life meaningful—even at its end.
Speaker:
Dr Xavier Symons
Director of the Plunkett Centre for Ethics
Australian Catholic University
Biosketch:
Xavier Symons is a bioethicist and Director of the Plunkett Centre for Ethics at the Australian Catholic University. He has published widely on the ethics of end of life care and euthanasia, conscientious objection, pandemic ethics, and assisted reproduction. He also has a keen interest in the philosophy of wellbeing and was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow for two years at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University. Xavier’s current work sits on the intersection between philosophical bioethics and clinical medicine, and he is an ethics consultant to several health aged care organisations in Australia.
Discussant:
Prof Emmanuel Cheung
Intensive care unit (ICU) physician
Clinical Assistant Professor of Practice, Critical Care Medicine Unit
School of Clinical Medicine, HKUMed
Moderator:
Prof Carl Hildebrand
Assistant Professor
Medical Ethics & Humanities Unit
School of Clinical Medicine, HKUMed
Welcome to join us!
Enquiry: Please contact Mr Edison Cheng (mehu@hku.hk).