Ronald A. Carson

Ronald A. Carson, Ph.D.

Dr. Carson was employed as a night orderly in an Indiana hospital while working his way through college, and recalls sitting by the bedside of a dying man from his small hometown there as an inspiration for his combining work in theology and medicine.

Dr. Carson was educated in Indiana, New York, Germany and Scotland. He was a visiting scholar at the Nietzsche Archives in Weimar while preparing his Ph.D. dissertation in the University of Glasgow's Faculty of Divinity.

Post-doctoral awards include fellowships from the Institute on Human Values in Medicine, the Council for Philosophical Studies, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Dr. Carson has held Visiting Scholar appointments at the University of Oslo's Center for Medical Ethics, the University of Edinburgh's Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities, the Institute of Medicine and Humanities, St. Patrick Hospital, University of Montana, and the University of Otago, New Zealand and the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey. He is an elected Fellow of The Hastings Center, former president of the Society for Health and Human Values and a recipient of that society's Annual Award.

Dr. Carson is the author of a monograph on Sartre and of many articles, chapters, and reviews in both humanities and medical publications. He is co-editor of and contributor to four books: Chronic Illness: From Experience to Policy, Indiana University Press, 1995, Philosophy of Medicine and Bioethics: A Twenty Year Retrospective and Critical Appraisal, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997, Behavioral Genetics and Society: The Clash of Culture and Biology, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999, and Practicing the Medical Humanities: Engaging Physicians and Patients, University Publishing Group, 2003. He is a founder and co-editor of the journal, Medical Humanities Review, a founding member of the editorial board of the journal Medical Humanities (UK) and a contributing editor of the journal, Literature and Medicine. In addition to serving on national grant review panels, Dr. Carson has directed numerous research and education projects. He lectures and consults nationally and internationally and is a commentator on medical ethical issues in the public media. He served as Director of The Institute for the Medical Humanities from 1982 to 2005. Dr. Carson retired from the IMH in 2008.

Since then he has been writing, lecturing, teaching Plan II seminars at the University of Texas at Austin, consulting, and enjoying time with his family and friends.

http://imh.utmb.edu/about-us/faculty/ronald-a-carson