George W. Gay Lecture in Medical Ethics
The George W. Gay Lecture is the oldest endowed lectureship at Harvard Medical School, and quite possibly the oldest medical ethics lectureship in the United States. The lectureship was established in 1917 by a $1,000 gift from Dr. George Washington Gay, an 1868 graduate of HMS. Gay gave Harvard the fund to provide an annual income to support lectures “to the advanced, or graduating classes in the Medical School upon Medical Ethics, and upon wise and proper methods of conducting the business of physicians, as relates to fees, collections, investments, etc.” The Gay Lectureship perpetuates his deep concern for the welfare of his patients and his appreciation of the constantly arising social and economic forces that impinge on medical care.
Since its inception, many of the nation's most influential physicians, scientists, researchers, and social observers have given the annual lecture. Past lecturers include Elie Wiesel, Erich Fromm, Felix Frankfurter, Margaret Mead, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Elizabeth Kübler Ross, E.O. Wilson, Joshua Lederberg, Marian Wright Edelman, Paul Krugman, Paul Farmer, and Donald Burwick.
2025 Gay Lecture by Jim Yong Kim, MD, PhD
Thursday, November 20, 2025 at 4-6:15pm ET at HMS Campus
More information about the lecture will be shared soon. This event is in-person only. A livestream will not be available. Registration is required to ensure accurate numbers for seating, catering, and security purposes. The recording will be posted later on our YouTube channel.
- Reception in TMEC Atrium, Second Floor from 4-5 pm ET
- Lecture in TMEC Amphitheater, Second Floor from 5-6:15 pm ET
About the Lecturer
Jim Yong Kim, MD, PhD, is Vice Chairman and Partner at Global Infrastructure Partners, a part of BlackRock, a fund that invests in infrastructure projects across several sectors around the world. From July 2012 to February 2019, Kim served as the 12th President of the World Bank Group. Soon after he assumed that position, the organization established two goals to guide its work: to end extreme poverty by 2030; and to boost shared prosperity, focusing on the bottom 40 percent of the population in developing countries. During Kim’s tenure, the World Bank Group supported the development priorities of countries at levels never seen outside of a financial crisis. Along with partners, the World Bank achieved two successive, record replenishments of the International Development Association (IDA), the institution’s fund for the poorest countries, which has enabled the Bank to greatly increase its work in areas suffering from fragility, conflict, and violence.
In 2018, the World Bank Group’s shareholders approved a historic capital increase for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), which offers sovereign loans to middle-income countries, and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Bank Group’s private sector arm. The capital increase will allow the Bank Group to help countries reach their development goals while responding to crises such as climate change, pandemics, fragility, and underinvestment in human capital around the world. The World Bank Group also launched several innovative financial instruments, including facilities to address infrastructure needs, prevent pandemics, and help the millions of people forcibly displaced from their homes by climate shocks, conflict, and violence. The Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF) made its first cash grant in 2018 to support frontline Ebola response efforts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As of January 2019, the Bank Group is working with the United Nations and leading technology companies to implement the Famine Action Mechanism, which uses technology such as artificial intelligence to detect warning signs earlier and prevent famines before they begin.
A physician and anthropologist, Kim’s career has revolved around health, education, and improving the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable. He was born in South Korea to parents who had fled the violence of the Korean War and grew up in Iowa, where his father was a practicing dentist and his mother was a philosopher and theologian. Kim graduated from Brown University, then became one of the first students to study jointly for a medical degree from Harvard Medical School and a PhD in anthropology at Harvard University. While at Harvard, Kim co-founded Partners In Health, a non-profit medical organization that provides healthcare to poor communities on four continents. With Partners In Health, Kim developed treatment programs for complex, deadly diseases such as multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis and AIDS in the poorest areas of Haiti, Peru, and several other countries. From 2003 to 2005, Kim served as Director of the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS department. He led WHO’s “3 by 5” initiative, the first-ever global goal for AIDS treatment, which greatly expanded access to antiretroviral medication in developing countries.
Following his service at WHO, Kim was Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard School of Public Health. In 2009, he was named the 17th President of Dartmouth College, where he served until he was nominated by President Barack Obama to lead the World Bank Group. Kim was the first leader of the Bank Group who did not come from the financial or political sectors and the first who had personal experience tackling development issues in poor countries. Kim holds a B.A. from Brown University, and an M.D. and PhD in medical anthropology from Harvard University. He received a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, was recognized as one of America’s “25 Best Leaders” by U.S. News & World Report, and was named one of TIME magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World.”
Past Lectures
Visit our YouTube playlist for videos of recent lectures. Read details and view photos below:
- 2024 Gay Lecture by Effy Vayena, PhD
- 2023 Gay Lecture by Steven E. Hyman, MD
- 2022 Gay Lecture by Rueben C. Warren, DDS, MPH, DrPH, MDiv
- 2021 Gay Lecture by Patricia A. King, JD
- 2020 Gay Lecture by Eric Topol, MD
- 2019 Gay Lecture by Danielle Allen, PhD
- 2018 Gay Lecture by K. Anthony Appiah
- 2017 Gay Lecture by Michael Sandel
Accommodation Requests
Harvard Medical School welcomes individuals with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you would like to request accommodations or have questions about the physical access provided, please email us in advance of your participation or visit. Requests for Sign Language interpreters and/or Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) providers should be made at least two (2) weeks in advance, if possible. Please note that the university will make every effort to secure services, but that services are subject to availability. For campus maps and directions, including an ADA pedestrian access map, please visit this Contact HMS page.
Past George W. Gay Lecturers
Click to expand details.| Year | Lecturer |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Jim Yong Kim, MD, PhD, Vice Chairman and Partner at Global Infrastructure Partners |
| 2024 | Effy Vayena, PhD, Professor of Bioethics and Associate Vice President for Digital Transformation and Governance, ETH Zurich, Switzerland |
| 2023 | Steven E. Hyman, MD, Core Institute Member, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research |
| 2022 | Rueben C. Warren, DDS, MPH, DrPH, MDiv, Director of the National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care, and Professor of Bioethics at Tuskegee University |
| 2021 | Patricia A. King, JD, Professor Emerita of Georgetown Law |
| 2020 | Eric Topol, MD, Executive Vice President, Scripps Research Director & Founder, Scripps Research Translational Institute |
| 2019 | Danielle Allen, PhD, James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, and Director of Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics |
| 2018 | Kwame Anthony Appiah, Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy and the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University |
| 2017 | Michael Sandel, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government Theory, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University |
| 2016 | Martha Minow, Morgan and Helen Chu Dean and Professor of Law, Harvard Law School |
| 2015 | Amy Gutmann, President, University of Pennsylvania |
| 2014 | Cass R. Sunstein, JD, Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard Law School |
| 2013 | Dan W. Brock, PhD, Frances Glessner Lee Professor of Medical Ethics, HMS |
| 2012 | Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPP, FRCP, Former Administrator, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services |
| 2010 | Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times op-ed columnist, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner |
| 2009 | Paul R. Krugman, PhD, Professor of Economics and International Affairs, Princeton University |
| 2008 | Harvey V. Fineberg, MD, PhD, President of the Institute of Medicine |
| 2006 | Paul Farmer, MD, PhD, Co-Founder, Partners in Health |
| 2005 | Jerome P. Kassirer, MD, Editor-in-Chief, Emeritus, New England Journal of Medicine |
| 2004 | Howard Gardner, PhD, Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education |
| 2002 | Rashi Fein, PhD, Professor of The Economics of Medicine, Emeritus, HMS |
| 2001 | Dame Cicely Saunders, St. Christopher’s Hospice, London |
| 1999 | Marian Wright Edelman, Founder and President, The Children’s Defense Fund |
| 1998 | Elie Wiesel, Mellon Professor of The Humanities, Boston University |
| 1998 | Daniel D. Federman, M.D., Dean for Medical Education, Harvard Medical School |
| 1997 | Daniel Callahan, Ph.D., Founder, The Hastings Center |
| 1996 | Sissela Bok, Ph.D., Fellow, Harvard Center for Population and Development |
| 1995 | Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Ph.D. Chair, Afro-American Studies Dept., Harvard Univ. |
| 1994 | Robert Lawrence, M.D., Director, Health Sciences, Rockefeller Foundation |
| 1993 | Bernadine Healy, M.D., Director, National Institutes of Health |
| 1992 | Larry R. Churchill, Chair, Social Medicine, Univ. N. Carolina School of Med. |
| 1991 | Arnold S. Relman, M.D., Prof. of Medicine, HMS; Editor, NEJM |
| 1988 | Albert Jonsen, Ph.D., Chair, Medical History and Ethics, Univ. of Washington |
| 1987 | Dennis Thompson, Ph.D., Dir. Pgm. in Ethics and Professions, Harvard Univ. |
| 1986 | Baroness Mary Warnock, Mistress, Girton College, Cambridge, England |
| 1985 | Dr. Julian Tudor Hart, Glyncorrwg Health Center, West Galmorgan, Wales |
| 1984 | Uwe E. Reinhardt, Ph.D., Prof. Economics and Public Affairs, Princeton Univ. |
| 1983 | Joshua Lederberg, Ph.D., President, The Rockefeller University |
| 1982 | The Rev. Robert F. Drinan, SJ, U.S. Congress; Georgetown Univ. Law Ctr. |
| 1981 | Arnold S. Relman, M.D., Prof. of Medicine, HMS; Editor, NEJM |
| 1980 | Dr. Edward O. Wilson, Professor of Science, Harvard University |
| 1979 | Dr. Carleton B. Chapman, President, The Commonwealth Fund |
| 1978 | Dr. Kenneth J. Ryan, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Harvard Univ. |
| 1977 | Dr. Franz J. Ingelfinger, Editor, New England Journal of Medicine |
| 1976 | Dr. Robert J. Lifton, Foundations Fund of Research, Yale University |
| 1973 | Dr. Elizabeth Kübler Ross, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Univ. of Chicago |
| 1970 | Dr. I Bernard Cohen, Professor of The History of Science, Harvard University |
| 1965 | Dr. Paul Freund, Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Harvard University |
| 1963 | Dr. Herman Ludwig Blumgart, Prof. of Medicine, Emeritus, Harvard University |
| 1962 | Erik Erikson, Prof. of Human Development, Lecturer Psych., Harvard Univ. |
| 1961 | Dr. Ralph Johnson Bunche, Under Secretary for Special Political Affairs, U.N. |
| 1960 | Dr. Margaret Mead, Adjunct Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University |
| 1959 | Dr. James Howard Means, Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, Harvard University |
| 1958 | The Honorable Felix Frankfurter, Associate Justice, US Supreme Court |
| 1957 | Dr. Erich Fromm, Professor of Psychoanalysis, National University of Mexico |
| 1956 | The Rev. Douglas Horton, Professor of Theology, Harvard University |
| 1955 | The Rev. George A. Buttrick, Professor of Christian Morals, Harvard University |
| 1954 | Dr. Hugh J. Morgan, Professor of Medicine, Vanderbilt University |
| 1945 | Ben Amers Williams, Author |
| 1941 | Dr. Charles R. Austrian, Assoc. Professor of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University Dr. David Cheever, Associate Professor of Surgery, Emeritus, Harvard University Dr. T. Grier Miller, Professor of Clinical Medicine, University of Pennsylvania |
| 1940 | Phillips Ketchum, Partner, Herrick, Smith, Donald, Farley & Ketchum |
| 1939 | Dr. Eliot Wadsworth, President, Boston Chamber of Commerce Dr. Robert L. DeNormandie, Comm. on Ethics & Discipline, Mass. Med. Soc. Dr. Donald Guthrie, Associate Professor of Surgery, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine |
| 1938 | Henry L. Shattuck, Treasurer, Harvard University Dr. Reginald Fitz, Lecturer on The History of Medicine, Harvard University Dr. Elton Mayo, Professor of Industrial Research, Harvard University |
| 1937 | Dr. Lawrence K. Lunt, Psychiatrist (Boston, Massachusetts) Dr. O. H. Perry Pepper, Professor of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania |
| 1935 | Dr. James B. Herrick, Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, Rush Medical College |
| 1934 | Dr. Arthur H. Ruggles, Superintendent, Butler Hospital, Providence, RI Dr. John Homans, Clinical Professor of Surgery, Harvard University Dr. Joseph H. Pratt, Professor of Clinical Medicine, Tufts College |
| 1933 | Dr. Robert B. Osgood, Professor Orthopedic Surgery, Harvard University Dr. Elliott P. Joslin, Clinical Professor of Medicine, Harvard University |
| 1932 | Dr. Roger I. Lee, Professor of Hygiene, Harvard University |
| 1931 | Dr. John M. Birnie, Secretary, New England Medical Society |
| 1930 | Dr. Samuel B. Woodward, past President, Massachusetts Medical Society |
| 1927 | Dr. Francis Weld Peabody, Professor of Medicine, Harvard University |
| 1926 | Dr. George G. Sears, Clinical Prof. of Medicine, Emeritus, Harvard University |
| 1924 | Dr. Walter P. Bowers, Managing Editor, Boston Medical and Surgical Journal |
| 1923 | Dr. George W. Gay |
| 1922 | Dr. John Bapst Blake, Assistant Professor of Surgery, Harvard University |