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Edward M. Hundert, MD

Contact Information

Harvard Medical School
Division of Medical Ethics
641 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
Email: edward_hundert@hms.harvard.edu

Education

M.D., Harvard Medical School
M.A.(Oxon.), Philosophy, Politics, and Economic, Oxford University
B.S., Mathematics and History of Science and Medicine, Yale University

Edward M. Hundert is Senior Lecturer in Medical Ethics and co-director (with Prof. Dan Brock) of the HMS first year “Medical Ethics and Professionalism” course. For the 2007-2008 academic year, he is also Senior Scholar in Harvard University’s Edmund J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics. Dr. Hundert is an internationally known academic leader, scholar, educator, psychiatrist, and medical ethicist. Over the past 20 years, he has served as President of Case Western Reserve University, Dean of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, and Associate Dean for Student Affairs at Harvard Medical School. He has held professorial appointments in psychiatry, medical ethics, cognitive science, and medical humanities, and he is a leader in developing innovative institutional affiliations and curricula both in academic medical centers and across all levels of higher education. Dr. Hundert earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and the history of science and medicine, summa cum laude, from Yale University, where he received Yale’s Chittenden Prize “to the graduating senior with highest standing in mathematics or the natural sciences.” He attended Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar, receiving the Batterby Prize from Hertford College for “highest first class honours in philosophy, politics and economics.” Four years later he earned the M.D. from Harvard Medical School, receiving the Sanger Prize for “excellence in psychiatric research.” He completed his psychiatric residency at McLean Hospital, a Harvard affiliate, where he served as chief resident. He has received numerous teaching, mentoring, and diversity awards, and for six consecutive years he was voted the “faculty member who did the most for the class” by Harvard Medical School graduates. Dr. Hundert has served on many national boards, including the Association of American Universities, the American Association of Medical Colleges, and the Liaison Committee on Medical Education. He co-chaired the Institute of Medicine’s National Summit on Health Professions Education. Dr. Hundert has served as chair of the Ethics Committees of McLean Hospital and the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society, and also served as ethics column editor for the Harvard Review of Psychiatry. Dr. Hundert has written dozens of articles and chapters on a variety of topics in psychiatry, philosophy, medical ethics, and medical education, as well as two books: Philosophy, Psychiatry and Neuroscience: Three Approaches to the Mind (Oxford University Press, 1989), and Lessons from an Optical Illusion: On Nature and Nurture, Knowledge and Values (Harvard University Press, 1995). In addition to his work in the Division of Medical Ethics, Dr. Hundert is a Director of the Washington Advisory Group, and a member of the boards of TIAA-CREF and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Ongoing Research

Current areas of particular interest include ethical issues in academic affiliations between medical schools/universities and hospitals, value questions in how physicians choose to stay up to date in relevant medical areas outside their own sub-specialty, and the moral dimensions of mentoring relationships.

Select Publications

• “A model for ethical problem solving in medicine, with practical applications.” American Journal of Psychiatry, 1987; 144:839-846.
• “Can neuroscience contribute to philosophy?” In: Blakemore C, Greenfield S, eds. Mindwaves. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987:406-429.
• Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Neuroscience: Three Approaches to the Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. (Paperback, 1990.)
• “Competing medical and legal ethical values: balancing problems of the forensic psychiatrist.” Critical Issues in American Psychiatry and the Law 1990; 7:53-72.
• “Becoming a problem-based tutor: increasing self-awareness through faculty development” (with LuAnn Wilkerson). In: Boud D, Feletti G, eds. The Challenge of Problem-Based Learning. London: Kogen Page, 1991:16.
• “Thoughts and feelings and things: a new psychiatric epistemology.” Theoretical Medicine 1991; 12:7-23.
• “A synthetic approach to psychiatry’s nature-nurture debate.” Integrative Psychiatry 1991; 7:76-92.
• “The brain’s capacity to form delusions as an evolutionary strategy for survival.” In: Spitzer M, Uehlein FA, Schwartz MA, Mundt C, eds. Phenomenology, Language, and Schizophrenia. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1992:346-354.
• “Autonomy, informed consent, and psychosurgery.” Journal of Clinical Ethics 1994; 5:264-266.
• “Boundaries in psychotherapy: model guidelines” (with Paul Appelbaum). Psychiatry 1995; 58:345-356.
• Lessons from an Optical Illusion: On Nature and Nurture, Knowledge and Values. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995. (Paperback, 1997; Chinese translation, Beijing University Press, 2000.)
• “How does the academic environment influence academic conduct?” (with Daniel Federman, Elizabeth Armstrong, and Lachlan Forrow). In: Jonsen AR, ed. Honesty in Learning, Fairness in Teaching: The Problem of Academic Dishonesty in Medical Education. New York: Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, 1995.
• “An unlikely argument for involuntary psychiatric hospitalization.” Harvard Review of Psychiatry 1995; 3:45-6.
• “Accounting for context: future directions in bioethics theory and research” (with Darlene Douglas-Steele). Theoretical Medicine 1996; 17:101-119.
• “Characteristics of the Informal Curriculum and Trainees’ Ethical Choices.” Opening Plenary Session: AAMC Conference on Students’ and Residents’ Ethical and Professional Development: Academic Medicine 1996; 71:624-628.
• “Context in medical education: the informal ethics curriculum” (with Darlene Douglas-Steele and Janet Bickel). Medical Education 1996; 30:353-364.
• “Looking a gift horse in the mouth: the ethics of gift giving in psychiatry.” Harvard Review of Psychiatry 1998; 6:114-117.
• “Ethical issues in the practice of psychiatry.” In: Nicoli A, ed. The Harvard Guide to Psychiatry. Harvard University Press, 1999:744-751.
• “The mentor-mentee relationship in medical education: a new analysis” (with Tana Grady-Weliky and Cynthia Kettyle). In: Bickel J, Wear D, eds. Educating for Professionalism: Creating a Culture of Humanism in Medical Education. University of Iowa Press, 2000:105-119.
• “A golden rule: remember the gift.” Journal of the American Medical Association 2001; 6:648-650.
• “Defining and assessing professional competence” (with Ron Epstein). Journal of the American Medical Association 2002; 287:226-235.