Robert Klitzman

Robert Klitzman, MD, is a Professor of Clinical Psychiatry in the College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Joseph Mailman School of Public Health, and the Director of the Masters of Bioethics Program at the Columbia University.  He has extensively studied ethical, social, and psychological issues in medicine and psychiatry, including improving doctor-patient interactions and communication, and end-of-life care; privacy and disclosure of genetic and other medical information; and ethical issues concerning assisted reproductive technologies, and conducting research in other cultures. His books include 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 HIV; The Trembling Mountain: A Personal Account of Kuru, Cannibals, and Mad Cow Disease; Mortal Secrets: Truth and Lies in the Age of AIDS, When Doctors Become Patients, and “Am I My Genes?”:  Confronting Fate and Family Secrets in the Age of Genetic Testing.  He has received numerous awards for his work, including a Burroughs-Wellcome Fellowship (for Future Leaders in Psychiatry from the American Psychiatric Association), and Fellowships from the Aaron Diamond Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation.  He is a gubernatorial appointee to the New York State Stem Cell Commission, and a member of the Department of Defense Research Ethics Advisory Panel.