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Institute for Bioethics logo
Mark R. Wicclair

Mark R. Wicclair, PhD

Core Faculty

Professional Statement

Mark Wicclair joined the University of Pittsburgh faculty in 1991. He has held faculty appointments at two campuses of the City University of New York (York College and Baruch College), Lafayette College, and West Virginia University.

His primary research and teaching interests are in bioethics and applied ethics, and he has published extensively in these areas. He has published three books, numerous articles in professional journals, and he has contributed several book chapters. He also wrote two entries for the International Encyclopedia of Ethics (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013) and an entry for the Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics (Springer, 2016). The topics of his published work include conscientious objection in health care, surgeons’ discretion, dismissing patients, research and teaching with recently deceased patients, end of life decision-making, decision-making capacity, futility, ethics and aging, preferential treatment, censorship, and abortion. He also published two articles and a book chapter on the television series, House, M.D. In addition to his publications, he has given numerous professional and public presentations on a wide range of topics.

Dr. Wicclair has provided ethics education to graduate and undergraduate students, medical students, residents, fellows, faculty, and members of the Consortium Ethics Program. Currently, he regularly teaches two of the three core courses in the Master of Arts in Bioethics program and serves on MA thesis committees.

He served on the UPMC Ethics Consultation Service and Ethics Committee for over twenty years. He was a founding member of the Committee for Oversight of Research Involving the Dead (CORID) and serves as its co-chair. He is a member of the UPMC Research Ethics Consultation Service (RECS). He also has served as a member and ethics consultant for two community hospitals.

Dr. Wicclair is a member of the Cambridge Quarterly of Ethics editorial board. He has received several fellowships, including a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowship for College Teachers and Independent Scholars. During his tenure as Professor of Philosophy at West Virginia University, he received five awards for outstanding research, teaching, and public service.

Appointments

  • Adjunct Professor of Medicine Division of General Internal Medicine School of Medicine
  • Co-Chair UPMC Committee for Oversight of Research Involving the Dead (CORID)
  • Core Faculty Institute for Bioethics
  • Professor Emeritus Department of Philosophy West Virginia University

Education and Training

  • PhD, Columbia University, 1976
  • MPhil, Columbia University, 1974
  • BA, Reed College, 1966
  • Chamberlain Fellowship, Columbia University, 1973.
  • F.J.E. Woodbridge Distinguished Fellow, Columbia University, 1972-73.
  • Faculty Fellowship, Columbia University, 1968-71.
  • Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, 1967-68.
  • Fulbright Fellowship (for a year of graduate study in philosophy at the University of Freiburg, Germany), 1966-67.
  • Phi Beta Kappa, Reed College, 1966.

Professional Interests in Bioethics

Representative Publications

  1. Conscientious Objection in Medicine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Elements in Bioethics and Neuroethics, 2024.

  2. Conscientious Objection in Health Care: An Ethical Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. (Designated a 2012 Choice “Outstanding Academic Title in Philosophy”).

  3. Ethics and the Elderly. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

  4. “Dismissing Patients for Health-based Reasons,” Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, Vol. 22, No 3 (July 2013).

  5. “Information that Will Help You with Advance Planning for Your Health Care,” in Thomasine Kushner, ed., Surviving Health Care: A Manual for Patients and Their Families (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

  6. “Ethics and Research with Deceased Patients,” Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, Vol. 17, No. 1 (January 2008).

Awards and Honors

  • Benedum Distinguished Scholar Award, West Virginia University (WVU), 2012-13 and 1995-96.
  • Outstanding Public Service Award, Eberly College of Arts & Sciences, WVU, 1996-97.
  • Outstanding Researcher Award, Eberly College of Arts & Sciences, WVU, 1994-95.
  • Outstanding Teacher Award, WVU, 1988-89.
  • National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowship for College Teachers and Independent Scholars, 1988.
  • WVU Research Fellowship, 1988.
  • Outstanding Teacher Award, College of Arts & Sciences, WVU, 1987-88.
  • Humanities Foundation of West Virginia Fellowship, 1987; 1979-80
  • Council for Philosophical Studies Stipend (to attend a six-week Institute on Law and Ethics), 1977.
  • Lafayette College Research Fellowship, 1977.

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