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Washington, D.C. — The most significant works of Edmund Pellegrino, professor emeritus of medicine and medical ethics at Georgetown University Medical Center's Center for Clinical Bioethics, have been captured in a new book:
Physician and Philosopher: The Philosophical Foundation of Medicine: Essays by Dr. Edmund Pellegrino.
The editors and conceivers of this project—Roger J. Bulger, MD, president of the Association of Academic Health Centers in Washington DC, and John P. McGovern, MD, president of the McGovern Foundation—note in the preface that Pellegrino has excelled in six areas throughout his career: as a clinician, biomedical researcher, teacher, "thought leader" as well as institutional leader, and, finally, as a human being. "We celebrate, through this book, his contributions thus far as part of an integrated life covering many sectors and qualifying him as a humane, complete physician and teacher, highly productive philosopher, and institutional leader, of a stature that puts him in a class with only a few others past and present," they wrote.
The editors commissioned a special foreword by Daniel Sulmasy, OFM, MD, PhD, director of the John J. Conley Department of Ethics at St. Vincent's Hospital and Medical Center in New York and professor of medicine at New York Medical College, who received his doctoral degree under Pellegrino's tutelage. The foreword, titled "The Essentialist Medical Ethics of Edmund Pellegrino: Analysis and Critique," is an analysis of Pellegrino's philosophy of medicine, and a review of the conceptual frameworks that have evolved since discussions of medical ethics began.
The works selected for this book cover a variety of topics, such as the meaning of healing and compassion, how clinicians should make decisions about patient care, and, in an essay about the biblical book of Job, how to help patients who are suffering. "To be sure, the physician must practice detachment—but he must practice a compassionate detachment," Pellegrino writes. "He must have a capacity to step back from Job's ills and anguish, to diagnose them accurately so as to treat them rationally. But, if he is also to help, he must confront, with his patients, the deeper anguish that transcends the pain and the physical ravages of the disease."
Another essay, "Academic Health Centers and the Medical Marketplace: A Faustian Compact Examined," was actually given as a speech in 1982—years before the advent of managed care and the sale of many money-losing hospitals.
Pellegrino received his MD degree from New York University and served residencies in medicine at Bellevue, Goldwater Memorial, and Homer Folks Tuberculosis Hospitals, after which he was a research fellow in renal medicine and physiology at New York University. During Dr. Pellegrino's 50-plus years in medicine and university administration, he has been departmental chairman, dean, vice chancellor and, finally, president of Catholic University in Washington, DC.
This book, published by Carden Jennings Publishing, is available from the publisher for $24.95, plus $10 shipping. All proceeds will benefit the Center for Clinical Bioethics, which Pellegrino established at Georgetown University in 1991.
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