2023-24 Council Members
David A. Fleming, MD, MA is chair of the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs. Dr Fleming is professor emeritus of medicine and was chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of Missouri School of Medicine in Columbia, where he is also founding director of the Center for Health Ethics. He is a past president of the American College of Physicians and served on the Board of Regents for the National Institutes of Health - National Library of Medicine.
Jeremy A. Lazarus, MD is vice chair of the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA). Dr Lazarus is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine. Dr Lazarus is a former speaker and president of the American Medical Association and past president of the Colorado Medical Society. He also serves as the second vice president of the Defense Health Board.
Rebecca W. Brendel, JD, MD is an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School (HMS), where she is director of the HMS Center for Bioethics and its Master of Science Degree Program. Dr Brendel bases her clinical work at Massachusetts General Hospital and focuses on challenges arising at the intersection of psychiatry, medicine, ethics, law, and human rights.
Larry E. Reaves, MD is a plastic and reconstructive surgeon at Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas. Prior to joining CEJA, Dr Reaves served as a delegate representing the Texas Medical Association in the AMA House of Delegates.
Daniel P. Sulmasy, MD, PhD is the André Hellegers Professor of Biomedical Ethics in the Departments of Medicine and Philosophy and serves as director of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University. A practicing internist and a philosopher, Dr Sulmasy is editor of Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics and has written extensively on many topics in bioethics, especially regarding care at the end of life. His seven books include Methods in Medical Ethics, The Rebirth of the Clinic, and Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: Before, During, and After the Holocaust.
Michael G. Knight, MD, MHSP is an assistant professor of medicine at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Dr Knight is the associate chief quality and population health officer, head of healthcare delivery transformation, and medical director of community primary care at The George Washington Medical Faculty Associates where he directs the development, implementation, and maintenance of quality and patient safety initiatives and the utilization of ethical standards to guide clinician performance at the individual and organizational level.
Arthur R. Derse, MD, JD is director of the Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities and professor of bioethics and emergency medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Dr Derse is a member and past chair of the Ethics Committee of the American College of Emergency Physicians, and past president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. He served as a board member of the American Society for Law, Medicine & Ethics, and as a member of the Ethics and Professionalism Committee of the Federation of State Medical Boards. He is a fellow of the Hastings Center and of the American College of Emergency Physicians. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute.
Danish M. Zaidi, MD, MTS, MBE is a resident physician in internal medicine at Yale-New Haven Hospital. He has published on topics including transplant ethics, scarce resource allocation, and medical education in leading journals like Heart, Academic Medicine, and the American Journal of Bioethics. Dr Zaidi was a former board member of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities and a theme issue editor of the AMA Journal of Ethics.
Sophia A. Doerr, MSE is a MD/PhD student at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health where her research focus lies in the intersection of clinical informatics, healthcare delivery systems, health equity, and medical ethics. She is also in the Training in Urban Medicine and Public Health program with a focus in advocacy and leadership development. Sophia completed her bachelor degree in biomedical engineering and applied mathematics and statistics and her masters in biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University. She has a background in the development of deep learning clinical decision support tools and spinal navigation surgery algorithms.
Staff
Audiey C. Kao, MD, PhD is vice president of ethics.
Amber R. Comer, PhD, JD is director, ethics policy and CEJA secretary.
Scott J. Schweikart, JD, MBE is a senior policy analyst.
Jake Young, PhD, MFA, MPH is a senior policy analyst.
Thomas M. Wagner is CEJA coordinator.