Dr. Curlin speaks about the purpose of medicine in the health of the patient, about conscientious practice intrinsic to good medicine, and about unjust, nonmedical uses of “medical science” to bring about situations, including being dead, that contradict the purposes of medicine. Dr. Curlin encourages people to contend for good medicine, to bear witness to it in their practices before persuading their colleagues. This means in part letting go of helplessness and victimhood. It means connecting with others who share a commitment to the patient’s health. It means patience and endurance and probably long suffering.

Dr. Curlin is a hospice and palliative care physician who joined Duke University in January 2014 where he holds joint appointments in the School of Medicine, including the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine, and in Duke Divinity School, including its Initiative on Theology, Medicine and Culture. His work fosters scholarship, study, and training regarding the intersection of medicine, ethics, and religion. After graduating from medical school, he completed an internal medicine residency training and fellowships in both health services research and clinical ethics at the University of Chicago before joining its faculty in 2003. Dr. Curlin’s empirical research charts the influence of physicians’ moral traditions and commitments, both religious and secular, on physicians’ clinical practices. As an ethicist, he addresses questions regarding whether and in what ways physicians’ religious commitments ought to shape their clinical practices in a plural democracy. Dr. Curlin and colleagues have authored numerous manuscripts published in medicine and bioethics literature, including a New England Journal of Medicine paper titled, “Religion, Conscience and Controversial Clinical Practices.” He is particularly concerned with the moral and spiritual dimensions of medical practice and the doctor-patient relationship, and with the moral and professional formation of physicians. His areas of expertise are medicine, medical ethics, the doctor-patient relationship, religion and medicine, and conscience. At the University of Chicago, Dr. Curlin founded and was co-director of the Program on Medicine and Religion.