Howard Brody

Last updated

Howard A. Brody (born June 23, 1949) [1] is an American bioethicist and family physician. He was a professor of family medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch prior to his retirement from there in 2016. For much of his time at the University of Texas Medical Branch, he was the director of the Institute for the Medical Humanities there. [2] Brody has performed research in the field of placebo studies.

Contents

Career

Brody taught medicine at Michigan State University before leaving the faculty there in 2006. From 1985 to 2006, he directed the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences there. [3] [4]

Work

Brody is known for his extensive writing about the placebo effect [4] [5] and about the pharmaceutical industry. [6] He has been critical of increasing medical costs, [7] and has been called a "watchdog" in regard to relationships between pharmaceutical companies and medical research. [8] In 2010, he challenged his fellow physicians to identify tests and treatments that did not produce any benefit, which has been credited with inspiring the Choosing Wisely campaign. [9]

Lawsuit

In 2016, Brody filed a complaint against the University of Texas Medical Branch, alleging that the University discriminated against him by placing him on a leave of absence, cutting his salary significantly, and removing him from his position as director of the Institute for the Medical Humanities. He claimed that this was an unusually harsh punishment for his handling of a sexual assault accusation. [10] This complaint ended up becoming a lawsuit in federal court. [11]

Awards and recognition

In 2009, Brody received the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities' Lifetime Achievement Award. [12] He is a Hastings Center Fellow. [13]

Related Research Articles

Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health, including those emerging from advances in biology, medicine and technologies. It proposes the discussion about moral discernment in society and it is often related to medical policy and practice, but also to broader questions as environment, well-being and public health. Bioethics is concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, theology and philosophy. It includes the study of values relating to primary care, other branches of medicine, ethical education in science, animal, and environmental ethics, and public health.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Texas Medical Branch</span> Hospital in Texas, United States

The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) is a public academic health science center in Galveston, Texas. It is part of the University of Texas System. UTMB includes the oldest medical school in Texas, and has about 11,000 employees. In February 2019, it received an endowment of $560 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur Caplan</span>

Arthur L. Caplan is the Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor of Bioethics at New York University Grossman School of Medicine and the founding director of the Division of Medical Ethics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Hastings Center</span>

The Hastings Center is an independent, nonpartisan bioethics research institute and think tank based in Garrison, New York. It was instrumental in establishing the field of bioethics and is among the most prestigious bioethics and health policy institutes in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edmund Pellegrino</span>

Edmund Daniel Pellegrino was an American bioethicist and academic who served as the 11th president of The Catholic University of America (CUA) from 1978 to 1982. For 35 years, Pellegrino was a distinguished professor of medicine and medical ethics and the Director of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University. Pellegrino was an expert both in clinical bioethics, and in the field of medicine and the humanities, specifically, the teaching of humanities in medical school, which he helped pioneer). He was the second layman to hold the position of President of Catholic University.

William J. Winslade, Ph.D., J.D. is the James Wade Rockwell Professor of Philosophy of Medicine at the Institute for Medical Humanities, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law and Associate Director for Graduate Programs, Health Law & Policy Institute at the University of Houston Law Center. He is a fellow of the Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institution.

Jonathan D. Moreno is an American philosopher and historian who specializes in the intersection of bioethics, culture, science, and national security, and has published seminal works on the history, sociology and politics of biology and medicine. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Dan W. Brock was an American philosopher, bioethicist, and professor emeritus at Harvard University and Brown University. He was the Frances Glessner Lee Professor Emeritus of Medical Ethics in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, the former Director of the Division of Medical Ethics at the Harvard Medical School, and former Director of the Harvard University Program in Ethics and Health (PEH).

Baruch A. Brody was an American bioethicist. He was the Leon Jaworski Professor of biomedical ethics and former Director of the Center for Ethics, Medicine and Public Issues at The Baylor College of Medicine and Andrew Mellow professor of Humanities in the Department of Philosophy at Rice University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John P. McGovern</span>

John P. McGovern was an American allergist, investor and philanthropist. He established the McGovern Allergy Clinic in Houston, Texas, created the Texas Allergy Research Foundation and the John P. McGovern Foundation, and co-founded the American Osler Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Norman Daniels</span>

Norman Daniels is an American political philosopher and philosopher of science, political theorist, ethicist, and bioethicist at Harvard University and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Before his career at Harvard, Daniels had built his career as a medical ethicist at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, and at Tufts University School of Medicine, also in Boston.

Leonard Michael Fleck is an American philosophy professor and medical ethicist. He earned his Ph.D. from St. Louis University in 1975 and taught courses at St. Mary's College (Indiana) before going on to teach and at Michigan State University where he currently holds a dual appointment with the philosophy department and the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences. Fleck was also a member of Hillary Clinton's Task Force on Health Reform in 1993 and the staff ethicist for the Michigan governor's task force on access to health care in 1989-1990.

The MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, founded in 1981, is a non-profit clinical medical ethics research institute based in the United States. Founded by its director, Mark Siegler, the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics aims to improve patient care and outcomes by promoting research in clinical medical ethics by educating physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals and by helping University of Chicago Medicine patients, families, and health care providers identify and resolve ethical dilemmas. The center has trained over 410 fellows, including many physicians, attorneys, PhDs and bioethicists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Josef Schmid (flight surgeon)</span> NASA flight surgeon and Major General in the United States Air Force Reserves

Josef F. Schmid is a German-American physician, NASA flight surgeon and a major general in the United States Air Force Reserves. He served as an aquanaut on the joint NASA-NOAA NEEMO 12 underwater exploration mission in May 2007. On 8 October 2021 he became one of the first humans to be Holoported off the planet and into space, visiting the International Space Station by telepresence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Siegler</span> American physician

Mark Siegler is an American physician who specializes in internal medicine. He is the Lindy Bergman Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Chicago., He is the Founding Director of Chicago's MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. Siegler has practiced and taught internal medicine at the University of Chicago for more than 50 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sean Roden</span> NASA flight surgeon

Sean Kevin Roden is a NASA flight surgeon was the lead of medical operations for the International Space Station (ISS) from 2004 to 2007.

Thomas R. Cole is a writer, historian, filmmaker, and gerontologist. He is currently the McGovern Chair in Medical Humanities and Director of the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. He is also a spiritual director at Congregation Beth Israel's Center for Healing, Hope, and the Human Spirit.

Edward Bivens Singleton was an American physician and one of the early pediatric radiologists in the United States. He was the first physician hired by Texas Children's Hospital before it opened in the 1950s, and he practiced there until shortly before his death. He received awards for his career achievements from several radiology-related organizations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marie Charlotte Schaefer</span>

Marie Charlotte Schaefer was an early Texas physician and the first woman to become a faculty member of the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Keiller</span>

William Keiller was a Scottish born anatomist who trained in anatomy at the Edinburgh Extramural School of Medicine and was appointed as the first Professor of Anatomy at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) at Galveston, a post he held for 40 years. He served as Dean of the UTMB Medical School and as President of the Texas Medical Association. Many of his anatomical drawings and paintings are preserved and displayed at the Blocker History of Medicine collection at UTMB Moody Medical Library.

References

  1. "Howard Brody". Name Authority File. Library of Congress . Retrieved 24 June 2017.
  2. Levinthal, Dave (15 September 2016). "When it comes to transparency, neither Trump nor Clinton excel — but Clinton does better". Center for Public Integrity . Retrieved 24 June 2017.
  3. "Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences History". Michigan State University Website. Retrieved 24 June 2017.
  4. 1 2 Talbot, Margaret (9 January 2000). "The Placebo Prescription". The New York Times . Retrieved 24 June 2017.
  5. Barton, Adriana (12 January 2014). "The placebo effect: A new study underscores its remarkable power". The Globe and Mail . Retrieved 24 June 2017.
  6. Zuger, Abigail (20 March 2012). "A Drumbeat on Profit Takers". The New York Times . Retrieved 24 June 2017.
  7. Associated Press (23 April 2012). "Study: Appendix surgery costs differ around U.S." CBS News . Retrieved 24 June 2017.
  8. Dreger, Alice (6 February 2013). "What the Sunshine Act Means for Health Care Transparency". The Atlantic . Retrieved 24 June 2017.
  9. Begley, Sharon (21 February 2013). "Just say don't: Doctors question routine tests and treatments". Reuters . Retrieved 24 June 2017.
  10. Elder, Laura (25 March 2016). "Former medical humanities program director lodges complaint against UTMB". The Daily News . Retrieved 24 June 2017.
  11. Ferguson, John Wayne (5 April 2017). "Lawsuit asserts UTMB used misery campaign to force resignation". The Daily News. Retrieved 24 June 2017.
  12. "Brody receives lifetime achievement award" (Press release). University of Texas Medical Branch. 12 June 2009. Retrieved 24 June 2017.
  13. "Hastings Center Fellows". The Hastings Center. 21 September 2015. Retrieved 30 April 2019.