A philosopher and lawyer, Glenys Godlovitch, came to health law and ethics through a happy coincidence when she moved for family reasons to Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1994. Until then, Glenys practised law in Alberta and taught occasional university courses in philosophy, jurisprudence and criminal law.
In New Zealand, Glenys’s first job was as a lawyer with the regional health authority. In 1996 she took an academic position in law and philosophy at Lincoln University. She joined the Canterbury Ethics Committee in 1996 and began to focus on and publish in bioethics, medical law and property law. Glenys also chaired the university research ethics committee until she and her family returned to Canada in 2002, specifically for her to take up a position at the University of Calgary. At Calgary, she chaired the University’s Conjoint Health Research Ethics Board, taught and supervised students in health law and ethics and served on several national and provincial committees to harmonize research ethics reviews. Following her retirement from the Faculty of Medicine in 2012, Glenys chaired the Alberta Cancer Research Ethics Committee and served on the steering committee for MICYRN (Mother, Infant, Child and Youth Research Network).
Notable highlights for Glenys in her pursuit of contributing to health research ethics were being asked to serve on the Alberta First Nations Information Governance Committee and being given the feather she still carries with her to all meetings as a reminder of responsibilities and trust placed in her. Her core interests are health research and bio-banking, registries and secondary use of health information. She maintains bioethics connections in New Zealand and remains an active author with recent publications in various neurosciences and research journals and the ethics chapter in the 5th edition of Health Care and the Law (New Zealand).
