Education
I earned a B.A. cum laude in Philosophy and English at Duquesne University in 1969, a M.A. in Philosophy in 1971 and a Ph.D. in Philosophy in 1976 at the University of Texas at Austin. During1974-76, I was a Research and Teaching Fellow in the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch.

Academic History
Since 2005, I have been Professor of Philosophy, Senior Research Fellow in the Social Philosophy & Policy Center, and Director of the BGeXperience Program (the university’s values program) at Bowling Green State University. I also am Professor of Clinical Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, Ohio State University.

Previously, I was Professor of Bioethics in the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, F. J. O’Neill Chair in Clinical Bioethics, and  Chairman (1997-2004) of the Department of Bioethics with a joint appointment in the Transplant Center at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation (CCF), Cleveland, Ohio.

During the 2003-2004 Winter Term, I was the Freiwillige Akademische Gesellschaft Visiting Professor and the 2004 Ann Frank Foundation Lecturer at the University of Basel, Switzerland.

I started my academic career at Southern Illinois University (SIU) in 1976 where I was the founding Director of Medical Ethics Program and Professor of Medical Ethics, Psychiatry, and Philosophy and Director of the Clinical Ethics Center at Memorial Medical Center, Springfield, IL, an affiliated teaching hospital.

Clinical/Organizational Ethics & Ethics Consultation
Since the late 1970s I have worked in clinical ethics and ethics consultation and I developed one of the earliest and most extensive ethics education programs for medical students and residents at SIU. At the Cleveland Clinic, I became extensively involved in critical care ethics, established the Critical Care Ethics Liaison Service, and restructured the Ethics Consultation Service. I was also responsible for coordinating the Ethics Committees of the Cleveland Clinic Health System and served on the Liver Transplantation Selection Committee and the Advanced Heart Failure Therapeutics Committee (formerly the Heart Transplantation Selection Committee).

Research and Publications
I have published on a wide range of topics including autonomy and dependence in old age, bioethics expert testimony, brain death, clinical ethics, ethics consultation, ethics of innovative treatments, ethics in long-term care, organ donation and transplantation, philosophical aspects of psychiatric nosology, quality improvement, and research ethics. I have also given lectures on many of these—and other—topics. A full list of this work is in my curriculum vitae. PDFs of some of my articles are available on this site. I am currently working on a funded project on the ethical and social value issues in drug-eluting stents (des) focusing on the practical ethical lessons for nanoscale scientists.

International Bioethics
For many years, I have been active in international bioethics. I continue to co-direct the International Association of Bioethics (IAB) Network on Ethics Education and the series of International Conferences on Clinical Ethics and Consultation: Cleveland (2003), Basel (2005), Toronto (2007), Rijeka, Croatia (2008), Taipei (2009), Portland, OR (2010). I am also on the Board of Directors of the IAB and serving as Chairman of the International Scientific Committee of the 9th World Congress of Bioethics scheduled for September 3-8, 2008 in Rijeka, Croatia.