Daniel Sulmasy, MD, PhD, MACP is a Senior Research Scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics and on the faculty of the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics . He is the inaugural Andre Hellegers Professor of Biomedical Ethics, with co-appointments in the Departments of Philosophy and Medicine at Georgetown.
His research interests encompass both theoretical and empirical investigations of the ethics of end-of-life decision-making, ethics education, and spirituality in medicine. He has done extensive work on the role of intention in medical action, especially as it relates to the rule of double effect and the distinction between killing and allowing to die. He is also interested in the philosophy of medicine and the logic of diagnostic and therapeutic reasoning. HIs work in spirituality is focused primarily on the spiritual dimensions of the practice of medicine. His empirical studies have explored topics such as decision-making by surrogates on behalf of patients who are nearing death, and informed consent for biomedical research.
He continues to practice medicine part-time as a member of the University faculty practice. He completed his residency, chief residency, and post-doctoral fellowship in General Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He has previously held faculty positions at the University of Chicago and New York Medical College. He has served on numerous governmental advisory committees, and served on the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues fro 2010-2017.
He is the author or editor of six books: The Healer’s Calling (1997), Methods in Medical Ethics (2001; 2nd ed. 2010), The Rebirth of the Clinic (2006), A Balm for Gilead (2006), Safe Passage: A Global Spiritual Sourcebook for Care at the End of Life (2013), and Francis the Leper: Faith, Medicine, Theology, and Science (2014). He also serves as editor-in-chief of the journal Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics.
Dr. Sulmasy holds a Ph.D from Georgetown University and an M.D from Cornell University. He holds emeritus status at the University of Chicago, where he was Kilbride-Clinton Professor of Medicine and Ethics in the Department of Medicine and Divinity School, Associate Director of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics in the Department of Medicine, and Director of the Program on Medicine and Religion.