upstate medical university center for bioethics and humanities

Robert S. Olick

Robert S. Olick, JD, PhD Robert S. Olick, J.D., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Bioethics and Humanities and Executive Director of the Consortium for Culture and Medicine. He earned his law degree at Duke University and his doctorate in philosophy and bioethics at Georgetown University and the Kennedy Institute of Ethics. Before joining the Center in 2001, he taught in the College of Medicine and the College of Law at the University of Iowa, and served as Executive Director of the New Jersey Bioethics Commission.

Dr. Olick chairs the University Hospital Ethics Committee and serves on its Ethics Consultation Service. As of January 1, 2008, he became Executive Director of the Consortium for Culture and Medicine. He is Managing Editor of the Center's Bioethics in Brief newsletter and sits on the board of the Institute for Health Care Ethics, a community-based organization.

Dr. Olick directs the Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in Medicine (ELSIM) component of the Practice of Medicine course, required for all first-year medical students. He also teaches third-year medical students in Bioethics at the Bedside. He has taught courses on research ethics and health law, and will teach Genetics, Disability, and the Law in spring 2008 for the Consortium for Culture and Medicine.

His research interests include end-of-life decision-making, the physician-patient relationship, genomic medicine, and reprogenetics. He is the author of Taking Advance Directives Seriously: Prospective Autonomy and Decisions Near the End of Life (Georgetown Univ. Press, 2001, 2004) and the co-author (with Robert Weir) of The Stored Tissue Issue: Biomedical Research, Ethics, and Law in the Era of Molecular Genetics (Oxford Univ. Press, 2004).

Dr. Olick may be reached at 315.464.8453 or at olickr@upstate.edu.

Books

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Olick RS. Taking Advance Directives Seriously: Prospective Autonomy and Decisions Near the End of Life. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2001, paperback edition, 2004.

Weir R, Olick RS. The Stored Tissue Issue: Biomedical Research, Ethics, and Law in the Era of Genomic Medicine. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Other Selected Publications

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Olick RS. Ethics, epidemics, and the duty to treat. J Public Health Manag Pract. 2004 Jul-Aug;10(4):366-7.

Olick RS, Bergus GR. Malpractice liability for informal consultations. Fam Med. 2003 Jul-Aug;35(7):476-81.

Olick RS. It's ethical, but is it legal? Teaching ethics and law in the medical school curriculum. Anat Rec. 2001 Feb;265(1):5-9.

Olick RS. Disclosing genetic information to family members. Do old paradigms fit the new medicine? N J Med. 2000 Jan;97(1):43-6.

Olick RS. Ethics consultation and the law: what’s the standard of care? In: Rubin SB, Zoloth L, editors. Margin of Error: The Ethics of Mistakes in the Practice of Medicine. Hagerstown, MD: University Publishing Group; 2000. 287-304.

Olick RS. Genes in the workplace: new frontiers for ADA law, policy and research. In: Blanck PD, editor. Employment, Disability, and the Americans With Disabilities Act: Issues in Law, Public Policy and Research. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press; 2000. 285-314.

Olick RS, Kimura R, Kielstein JT, Hayashi H, Riedel M, Siegler M. Advance care planning and the ALS patient: A cross cultural perspective on advance directives. Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik [Annual Review of Law and Ethics]. 1996;4:529-52.

Olick RS. Brain death, religious freedom, and public policy: New Jersey's landmark legislative initiative. Kennedy Inst Ethics J. 1991 Dec;1(4):275-92.

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