Larry Churchill, PhD, MDiv

Larry Churchill, PhD, MDiv

Ann Geddes Stahlman Professor Emeritus of Medical Ethics,
Vanderbilt University

Larry Churchill, PhD, MDiv, is the Ann Geddes Stahlman Professor Emeritus of Medical Ethics and Professor Emeritus of Medicine, Religion, and Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of several books, notably Everyday Ethics, What Patients Teach, Healers, and Bioethics Re-envisioned. His areas of expertise include clinical medical ethics, end-of-life care, healthcare rationing, justice in healthcare, and human subject research.

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Churchill discusses his upbringing in Hector, Arkansas, and his education at Southwestern (now Rhodes College) and Duke University. He reflects on his early career as a Presbyterian minister and his transition to bioethics. Churchill discussed his career at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, including the establishment of a social medicine department and the creation of an ethics center that highlighted the importance of humanities and social sciences in medical education. Churchill detailed his extensive work in clinical ethics rotations while at Vanderbilt and created the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society. He also describes his work in bioethics as it relates to healthcare reform; he recalls scholarship of his in which he advocated for universal coverage based on self-interest rather than altruism. He discusses the Clinton era healthcare reform failure as being due to vested interests and the persistence of healthcare lobbyists.

He emphasized the role of narrative in ethics and the need for a holistic approach that includes reason, memory, imagination, and emotions. Churchill also touched on the challenges of healthcare commodification and the importance of respect and cultural humility in bioethics. Professor Churchill shares his recent work that focuses on the significant health impacts of climate change and the need for bioethicists to address it. The interview concludes with Churchill reflecting on aging and his current work which integrates his bioethics and philosophy training with a holistic view of life that includes gratitude, awe, spiritual growth, and compassion.

You can find full audio, transcript, and other materials in the Moral Histories Archive 

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