Edmund Pellegrino

Senior Fellow

Edmund Pellegrino, MD is the Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Medical Ethics at the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at Georgetown University Medical Center. He also serves as Chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics in Washington, DC.  He was the John Carroll Professor of Medicine and Medical Ethics and the former director of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, the Center for the Advanced Study of Ethics at Georgetown University, and the Center for Clinical Bioethics.

He received his BS degree from St. John's University and his MD 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 60+ years in medicine and university administration, he has been departmental chairman, dean, vice chancellor, and president.

Dr. Pellegrino is the author of over 575 published items in medical science, philosophy, and ethics and a member of numerous editorial boards. He is the author or co-author of twenty 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 forty-eight honorary degrees 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, the Laetare Award of the University of Notre Dame, and the Beecher Award for Life Achievement in Bioethics from The Hastings Center.

Dr. Pellegrino's research interests include the history and philosophy of medicine, professional ethics, and the physician-patient relationship.