upstate medical university center for bioethics and humanities

James Dwyer

James Dwyer, PhD James Dwyer, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Bioethics and Humanities and Associate Director of Education. He earned a doctorate in philosophy at the University of California, Irvine.

Dr. Dwyer serves on the University Hospital Ethics Committee and works on its Ethics Consultation Service. Outside Upstate, Dr. Dwyer is a board member of the International Association of Bioethics and coordinates its Environmental Bioethics Network.

Dr. Dwyer teaches in several venues at Upstate. He is course director for Bioethics at the Bedside, required of third-year medical students. He teaches Global Health and Ethics for the Consortium for Culture and Medicine and leads a Global Health Discussion Group for medical students. He also lectures in the Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in Medicine component of the Practice of Medicine course, and supervises individual electives in Bioethics.

His research focuses on issues of justice, democracy, and global health. His recent work concerns ethical issues in climate change, the global migration of health care workers, and health care workers' obligations in epidemics. His writings have appeared in the Hastings Center Report, Bioethics, Academic Medicine, and the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.

Dr. Dwyer may be reached at 315.464.5404 or at dwyerja@upstate.edu.

Selected Publications

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Dwyer J. What's wrong with the global migration of health care professionals? Individual rights and international justice. Hastings Cent Rep. 2007 Sep-Oct;37(5):36-43.

Dwyer J. Case study: what should the dean do? Hastings Cent Rep. 2006 Jul-Aug;36(4):14; discussion 14-6. Reprinted in Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine, 7th ed. 2007.

Dwyer J. Global health and justice. Bioethics. 2005;19(5-6):460-75.

Dwyer J. Illegal immigrants, health care, and social responsibility. Hastings Cent Rep. 2004 Jan-Feb;34(1):34-41. Reprinted in Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine, 7th ed. 2007.

Dwyer J. Part of my liver. Transplantation. 2003 Oct 27;76(8):1266-7.

Dwyer J. Setting limits, enhancing democracy. Hastings Cent Rep. 2003;33(3):47-8.

Dwyer J. Babel, justice, and democracy: reflections on a shortage of interpreters at a public hospital. Hastings Cent Rep. 2001 Mar-Apr;31(2):31-6.

Dwyer J. Medicine and the arts: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Acad Med. 1999;74(7):804-5. Reprinted in Ten years of Medicine and the Arts.

Dwyer J. Primum non tacere: an ethics of speaking up. Hastings Cent Rep. 1994 Jan-Feb;24(1):13-8. Reprinted in The Social Medicine Reader, 2nd ed. Vol. 1. 2005.

Dwyer J. Dewey's conception of philosophy. Metaphilosophy 1991;22(3):190-202.

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