Robert D. Truog, MD, MA

Dr. Robert Truog is the Frances Glessner Lee Distinguished Professor of Medical Ethics, Anaesthesia, and Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Truog received his medical degree from the University of California, Los Angeles and is board certified in the practices of pediatrics, anesthesiology, and pediatric critical care medicine. He also holds a master’s degree in philosophy from Brown University and an honorary master of arts from Harvard University.

Dr. Truog’s career in bioethics began at Boston Children’s Hospital, where he served for many years as associate director of the Office of Ethics, co-chair of the Ethics Advisory Committee, and as executive director of the Institute for Professionalism and Ethical Practice. In 1992 he co-founded the Fellowship Program in Medical Ethics at HMS, and in 1999 co-founded the Harvard Ethics Consortium, which for almost 25 years has brought together the ethics committees at the Harvard teaching hospitals for monthly case discussions. He has also served as chair of the Harvard IRB, and since 2005 has chaired the Harvard Embryonic Stem Cell Research Oversight Committee (ESCRO).

In 2004 he was recruited to HMS to join philosopher and director Dan Brock in building the Division of Medical Ethics at HMS. On professor Brock’s retirement in 2014, Dr. Truog became director and reorganized the division to become a new Center for Bioethics at HMS. During his tenure, the Center established a Master of Bioethics program, which has become one of the largest and most highly respected graduate programs in the country, and recruited talented research faculty to help build the Center’s research portfolio. He stepped down from his role as director of the Center in 2023.

Dr. Truog practices pediatric intensive care medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, where he has served for more than 35 years. He has published more than 300 articles in bioethics and related disciplines, and his writings on the subject of brain death have been translated into several languages. His books include "Talking with Patients and Families about Medical Error: A Guide for Education and Practice" (2010, JHUP, translated into Italian and Japanese), and "Death, Dying, and Organ Transplantation" (2012, Oxford).

He lectures widely nationally and internationally, and is an active member of numerous committees and advisory boards. He has received several awards over the years, including the William G. Bartholome Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Christopher Grenvik Memorial Award, and the Shubin-Weil Master Clinician-Teacher Award, both from the Society of Critical Care Medicine. In 2013 he was honored with the Spinoza Chair at the University of Amsterdam.