Robert Klitzman

Background

Robert Klitzman was born on July 1, 1958.

Education

He attended Princeton University, where he studied with Clifford Geertz.

Career

Klitzman then conducted field research on Kuru in Papua New Guinea. Klitzman is currently a professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. He co-founded and for five years co-directed the Columbia University Center for Bioethics, is the director of the Masters in Bioethics program, and the director of the Ethics and Policy Core of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Center.

He has published seven books and authored or co-authored over 100 journal articles and chapters on critical issues in bioethics including: genetics, stem cells, ethics of assisted reproductive technologies, neuroethics, Human Immunodeficiency Virus prevention, recreational drug use, research ethics, and doctor-patient relationships.

His research on the experiences of physicians when they become patients shed important light on ways of improving doctor-patient relationships. He has been widely cited as an authority on ethical issues concerning genetic testing for Huntington"s disease, breast cancer, genetic discrimination, medical privacy, epidemics of Human Immunodeficiency Virus and prion diseases such as Kuru, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (or "Mad Cow" disease), death and dying, stem cell research, and spirituality and medicine.

His book, The Ethics Police?: Experimenting on Humans and the Inside World of Research Ethics Committees, is forthcoming in 2014. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund, the Aaron Diamond Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Achievements

• He then worked for Doctor Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, who had received the Nobel Prize for work on Kuru, a prion disease. His books include When Doctors Become Patients, A Year-Long Night: Tales of a Medical Internship, In a House of Dreams and Glass: Becoming a Psychiatrist, Being Positive: The Lives of Men and Women With Human Immunodeficiency Virus, The Trembling Mountain: A Personal Account of Kuru, Cannibals, and Mad Cow Disease, with Ronald Bayer, Mortal Secrets: Truth and Lies in the Age of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, which was a finalist for a 2004 Lambda Literary Award., and Am I My Genes?: Confronting Fate and Other Genetic Journeys.

Works

• Other Work

  • When Doctors Become PatientsA Year-Long Night: Tales of a Medical InternshipIn a House of Dreams and Glass: Becoming a PsychiatristBeing Positive: The Lives of Men and Women With HIVThe Trembling Mountain: A Personal Account of Kuru, Cannibals, and Mad Cow DiseaseMortal Secrets: Truth and Lies in the Age of AIDS (with Ronald Bayer)Am I My Genes? Confronting Fate and Family Secrets in the Age of Genetic TestingThe Ethics Police?: Experimenting on Humans and the Inside World of Research Ethics Committees (2015).

Membership

He is a member of the Empire State Stem Cell Commission, Human Immunodeficiency Virus Prevention Trials Network, and serves on the Department of Defense’s United States Army Medical Research and Materiel Command Research Ethics Advisory Panel.