Edmund D. Pellegrino, M.D.

Council chairman

Dr. Pellegrino is Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Medical Ethics and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University.

He has served as Director of the Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University; head of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics and director of the Center for the Advanced Study of Ethics at Georgetown; President of Catholic University; President and Chairman of the Yale-New Haven Medical Center; Chancellor and Vice President of Health Affairs at the University of Tennessee; founding Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Kentucky; and Founding Director and Vice President of the Health Sciences Center, State University of New York, Stony Brook, where he oversaw six schools of health sciences and the hospital, and served as Health Affairs Dean of the School of Medicine.

He has authored or co-authored 24 books and more than 550 published articles; is founding editor of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy; a Master of the American College of Physicians; Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences; recipient of a number of honorary doctorates; and a recipient of the Benjamin Rush Award from the American Medical Association, and the Abraham Flexner Award of the Association of American Medical Colleges.

In 2004, Pellegrino was named to the International Bioethics Committee of the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which is the only advisory body within the United Nations system to engage in reflection on the ethical implications of advances in life sciences.

Throughout his career, Dr. Pellegrino has continued seeing patients in clinical consults, teaching medical students, interns and residents, and doing research. Since his retirement in 2000, Dr. Pellegrino has remained at Georgetown, continuing to write, teach medicine and bioethics, and participate in regular clinical attending services.

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