Edmund Pellegrino: GUMC’s Philosopher Physician
.jpg "Edmund D. Pellegrino, MD, the John Carroll Professor Emeritus of Medicine")
To Edmund D. Pellegrino, MD, bioethics is not simply an academic exercise—it’s real life experience. People’s lives are affected. The questions posed by modern biotechnology, with its potential to alter the basis of life itself, must be addressed in the public sphere. “Especially in America,” he says, “because here we move quickly from a debate about something to ‘let’s make a law.’”
At 89, Pellegrino is the John Carroll Professor Emeritus of Medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center. Author of more than 500 publications (he still uses a manual portable Olivetti typewriter), he is best known for his discussions of Christian virtue and medical ethics in the treatment of patients, humanism and the physician, and the philosophical basis of medical treatment. Appointed by President George W. Bush, he recently completed a four-year term as chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics.
“The big questions in bioethics are the so-called human-life issues,” he points out, and lists among them assisted suicide, cloning, and the ability to alter the genome. “How we handle the weak, the disabled, the aged in a society that is youth oriented and obsessed with economics—these set of issues really depend upon the most fundamental of ethical questions, and that is ‘what is it to be human?’”
He thinks that many modern bioethicists tend to avoid the real metaphysics implicit in that question. He thinks that the ethical turmoil will more and more be in the realm of moral philosophy rather than bioethics. “That's where the turmoil is coming from, the deeper moral questions underneath it all.”
During his chairmanship the President’s Council on Bioethics completed reports on Bioethics and Human Dignity and The Genetics of Newborn Screening. A report on the Determination of Brain Death was prepared for the website and will be published soon. Reports on Organ Transplantation and Health Care Reform were ready for Council approval—however, the Council was terminated early in June.
Dr. Pellegrino has long argued that ethical questions should be raised early in the development of any heath care plan. The ethical issues, he feels, should guide the economics and should also be re-examined when any plan is set in motion. In the end, the ethical status of any reform depends on how it affects the welfare of those who need medical and health care.
Dr. Pellegrino sees himself as primarily a physician. “I see patients in my medical school teaching. After all, the heart of professional ethics lies in the personal relationships with the patient in need of care. I am bemused when people tell me that biotechnology will eventually replace the physician. As long as we remain mortal beings people will become sick and will need professional help. Call them doctors or something else—even on the most advanced spaceship heading off to the furthest galaxy, there will be a place for Dr. McCoy or his counterpart—whatever we call him or her.”
By Frank Reider, GUMC Communications
