Medical Plenary Speaker:The Hagop S. Mekhjian, MD, Endowed Chair in Medical Ethics and Professionalism & Director of The Ohio State University Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities The Rev. Dn. Sampson (Ryan) Nash, MD, MA is the Hagop S. Mekhjian, MD, Endowed Chair in Medical Ethics and Professionalism and the Director of The Ohio State University Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities. He also holds appointments as adjunct Professor of Christian Ethics at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary and Professor of Medicine at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. In addition to being an active educator, administrator, and serving as a healthcare ethics and clinical bioethics advisor and consultant, Dr Nash continues to be active in Palliative Medicine caring for patients primarily with advanced cancer. Dr Nash’s scholarship focuses on practical, procedural, and policy issues related to Medicine, Clinical Bioethics and Palliative Medicine. He also explores ethics foundations at the nexus of medicine, ethics, theology, religion, and culture. Dn Sampson serves at St. Gregory of Nyssa Orthodox Church (OCA) in Columbus, Ohio. He is the grateful husband of Sarah and proud father of four daughters. He occasionally helps them run their small farm north of Columbus. Dr. Nash received his medical degree from the University of Texas Medical School at Houston and his master’s degree in Bioethics from Trinity International University. He completed an internal medicine residency at the University of Texas Medical School, a fellowship in palliative medicine at the University of Alabama School of Medicine and was a fellow and visiting scholar at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine. Dr. Nash has been recognized as a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, Fellow of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Care, and Fellow in the Academy of Fellows of the Center of Bioethics and Human Dignity. He has repeatedly been named to the “America’s Best Doctors” and “World’s Best Doctors” lists.