Associate Director Ray De Vries Retirement

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CBSSM Associate Director Dr. Raymond De Vries will be retiring in December. Dr. De Vries is a professor in the departments of learning health sciences, obstetrics and gynecology, and sociology. He is also a visiting professor at CAPHRI School for Public Health and Primary Care, University of Maastricht, in the Netherlands. Dr. De Vries is a medical sociologist widely known for his work on “empirical bioethics” and the sociology of bioethics, i.e., exploring the way bioethics “gets done” in clinics and research ethics committees. He is also widely known for his analyses of the organizational and cultural influences on obstetrics and midwifery, demonstrating how medical practice is significantly shaped by non-clinical factors. Dr. De Vries will remain an active emeritus faculty member, continuing his research and his engagement with CBSSM, but he will be stepping down in his role as CBSSM Associate Director.

Ray’s notable contributions to CBSSM and its precursors involve his longstanding commitment to ethics education. He focused on making the medical ethics curriculum more systematic and explicit for medical students, helping to weave ethics into the curriculum throughout the four years of their training and increasing opportunities for ethics teaching in the clerkship years. Ray was an instrumental part of the team of CBSSM faculty that developed the Medical School Ethics Pathway of Excellence (PoE). Introduced in 2013, the Ethics PoE has grown to become one of the most popular pathways at the Medical School. He supported Prof. Kayte Spector-Bagdady in her creation and implementation of the much-needed Research Ethics Committee at CBSSM, serving as service Co-Chief. In recognition of his outstanding accomplishments and contributions to the field of bioethics, Ray was named a Hastings Center fellow in December 2018, joining a select group whose work provides valuable insight into complex ethical issues around health and health care, environment, and life sciences research. Ray has been a steady presence in the CBSSM community, moderating panel discussions and often serving as a master of ceremonies for our (pre-pandemic) movie nights.

We look forward to continuing to work with Dr. De Vries in his role as professor emeritus.