Bioethics Core will lead educational and research efforts
July 6, 2012
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| | Brian O’Sullivan, MD |
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Brian P. O’Sullivan, MD, has been named the director of the newly established Bioethics Core. Envisioned when planning began as part of the UMass Center for Clinical and Translational Science, the Bioethics Core will lead educational and research efforts as they relate to bioethics.
Dr. O’Sullivan, a professor of pediatrics and a pediatric pulmonologist, graduated from Dartmouth Medical School and completed his residency and fellowship training at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. O’Sullivan joined UMMS in 1984 as part of Tri-River Family Health Center and joined the department of pediatrics as a pediatric pulmonologist in 1990.
In addition to his clinical practice and research work in cystic fibrosis and other pediatric pulmonary diseases, O’Sullivan has become an internal expert and resource in the field of bioethics, serving on the Medical School’s institutional review board (IRB), the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects in Research. O’Sullivan joined the IRB in 1995, and served as vice chair from 1997 to 2000, and since 2000 as chair.
He has also taught the second-year medical school pharmacology course, Human Subjects in Clinical Research, since 2003. Most recently, in preparation for his new role as director of the Bioethics Core, O’Sullivan completed the Harvard School of Public Health’s one-year intensive training fellowship in medical ethics.
O’Sullivan said he plans to develop an interprofessional bioethics curriculum for students within the School of Medicine, the Graduate School of Nursing and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, with an emphasis on ethics focusing on the cutting-edge research being done on this campus in areas such as RNA biology, stem cell research and gene therapy.