Purpose and History
The Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy was created in July, 1982, as a joint project of Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University. While Baylor is primarily responsible for administering the program, the joint sponsorship of the program enables the center to draw on the rich intellectual resources of both institutions.
The impetus for founding the center was in recognition that the ever-increasing abilities of medicine raise fundamental value questions of how society should use these abilities and how much of them society can afford to use. The very success of medicine has made its practice morally complex. The mandate of the center is to develop teaching and research programs that address the moral, legal and public policy questions raised by health care and the biomedical sciences.
Center Leadership & Staff
Baruch A. Brody, Ph.D. has been the director of the of the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy since its inception. He previously was the chair of the philosophy department at Rice University.
Laurence McCullough, Ph.D. joined the center in 1988. He had previously been a professor at Georgetown University.
Mary A. Majumder, J.D., Ph.D. joined the center in 2004. She previously worked at the University of Houston Health Law and Policy Institute and at the Institute for Bioethics, Health Policy, and Law at the University of Louisville School of Medicine.
Amy McGuire, J.D., Ph.D. joined the center in 2004 after a three-year fellowship at the University of Texas Medical Branch in medical jurisprudence.
Rebecca Bartley Yarrison, Ph.D. joined the center in 2008. She received her Ph.D. from Rice University in 2009.
Jennifer Swindell, Ph.D. joined the center in 2008 after receiving her Ph.D. from Michigan State University.
Delores D. Smith, administrative associate, has been on the staff at Baylor since 1978 and transferred to the center when it was founded in 1982.