Edmund D. Pellegrino, M.D., M.A.C.P.
Senior Research Scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics; Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Medical Ethics at Georgetown University
Dr. Pellegrino, considered one of the founders of bioethics and an early pioneers in teaching humanities in medical schools, is John Carroll Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Medical Ethics and Senior Research Scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University. Dr. Pellegrino's career has simultaneously embraced three main streams of activity-clinician, administrator, research-scholar. In his 90th year, Dr. Pellegrino continues to mentor students, do attending rounds in Georgetown Hospital, and write and speak nationally and internationally.
Over the many years, Dr. Pellegrino's research interests have covered a broad range of topics, beginning during his fellowship with clinical and laboratory studies in cardio-renal physiology and electrolyte metabolism. These were later extended to electrolyte metabolism in renal disease, and comparative biochemistry of calcified tissues. For the last two decades his research interests have been focused on moral philosophy and ethics of medicine.
Throughout his entire career, Dr. Pellegrino has remained involved in clinical medicine as practitioner, bedside teacher and clinical ethicist. Despite his many interests he identifies himself as a physician primarily -- whose other interests are a natural outcome of his lifelong desire to plumb the deeper meanings of medicine as both a biological and a human science.
He received his B.S. degree from St. John's University and his M.D. from New York University. He served residencies in medicine at Bellevue, Goldwater Memorial, and Homer Folks Tuberculosis Hospitals, following which he was a research fellow in renal medicine and physiology at New York University. During Dr. Pellegrino's 65+ years in medicine and university administration, he has been departmental chairman, dean, vice chancellor and president.
He was founding chairman and medical director at the Hunterdon Medical Center in Flemington, New Jersey, following which he became founding chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Kentucky, Chancellor and Vice President for the Health Sciences at the University of Tennessee, President of the Yale-New Haven Medical Center, President of The Catholic University of America, and Director of the NEH-sponsored Institute for Human Values in Medicine. In 1982 he was appointed as the John Carroll Professor of Medicine and Medical Ethics at Georgetown University. During his tenure at Georgetown he has served as Director of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, founding Director of the Center for the Advanced Study of Ethics and founding Director of the Center for Clinical Bioethics. At Georgetown he also served as Interim Chairman of the Division of Internal Medicine. Most recently, Dr. Pellegrino served as Chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics in Washington, DC from 2005-2009. He has been appointed as the Interim Director of the Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University Medical Center (2010) while a search is underway. In 2004 Dr. Pellegrino was named to the International Bioethics Committee of UNESCO.
Dr. Pellegrino is the author of over 600 published items in medical science, philosophy, and ethics and a member of numerous editorial boards. He is the author or co-author of 23 books, and the founding editor of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. Dr. Pellegrino is 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, and recipient of 52 honorary doctorates, in addition to other honors and awards including the Benjamin Rush Award from the American Medical Association, the Abraham Flexner Award of the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the Laetare Award of the University of Notre Dame.