Arthur R. Derse, M.D., J.D., will assume responsibilities as director of the new Medical College of Wisconsin’s Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities, effective July 1, 2010. The new center combines the College’s existing Center for the Study of Bioethics with its Medical Humanities Program. The Center will be part of the College’s Institute for Community, Population and Public Health.
According to Jonathan Ravdin, M.D., dean and executive vice president, “The goal of the new Center is to have an integrated approach to meet the education, research, clinical, and community health needs while enhancing the impact and academic excellence of both bioethics and medical humanities. Under Dr. Derse’s leadership we look forward to the growth of the Center as it continues to make major contributions to the missions of the College.”
Dr. Derse is currently a professor of bioethics and emergency medicine and was formerly the associate director of the Center for the Study of Bioethics and director of the Medical College’s Medical Humanities Program. He directs the Medical College’s Medical Ethics and Palliative Care course and medical humanities courses. He also directs graduate bioethics courses encompassing law, ethics education and ethics consultation in health systems. He was elected to the College’s Society of Teaching Scholars and is an Arnold Gold Foundation Humanism in Medicine awardee.
His appointments include chair of the Veterans Health Administration’s National Ethics Committee, senior consultant for academic affairs for the American Medical Association’s Institute for Ethics, and member of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Law and Aging. He is past president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, and is a member and former chair of the Ethics Committee of the American College of Emergency Physicians. He is chair of Froedtert Hospital’s Ethics Committee and serves on several other institutional ethics committees and editorial boards of ethics journals including the American Journal of Bioethics and the Journal of Clinical Ethics.
Dr. Derse has been a member of many expert advisory boards and committees, including the NIH Working Group on Informed Consent in Clinical Research Conducted under Emergent Circumstances. He is a highly published investigator and scholar in bioethics and medical humanities.
