The Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy is a complex organization striving to achieve success in multiple areas. As a result, our leadership team has several focus areas on different aspects of the center. Find out about the people who set the course for the center and oversee its academic and business operations.
Center and Leadership History
The Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy began as a joint program with BCM, Rice University, and the Institute for Spirituality and Health (formally the Institute of Religion), enabling the center to draw on the rich intellectual resources of both institutions.
The center, founded in 1982 by Baruch Brody, Ph.D., is committed to creating a shared, intellectual environment that encourages critical reflection on emerging, as well as perennial, ethical and policy challenges in healthcare and biomedical research. 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.
Dr. Baruch Brody retired from Baylor in July 2012. In August 2012, Dr. Paul Klotman appointed Amy L. McGuire, J.D., Ph.D. as the new director of the center. As director, Dr. McGuire is committed to building upon the strong foundation that the founding members of the center laid down, as well as create a nationally recognized center of excellence.
The Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine is located in the Texas Medical Center, the world’s largest medical complex. Today, our center comprises 15 primary faculty members, three of whom hold endowed positions, and over 30 administrative, research, and clinical ethics staff, located on the main Baylor campus. Our faculty have expertise in diverse disciplines including medical humanities, philosophy, religious studies, law, clinical ethics, medicine, social science, and health policy.