Jeffrey P. Spike , PhD
Jeffrey Philip Spike, Ph.D., has been working full-time in medical education since receiving his Ph.D. in philosophy from the Johns Hopkins University in 1987and he joins the McGovern Center as a Professor and the Director of the new Campus-Wide Ethics Program.
Dr. Spike spent 15 years at the University of Rochester Medical Center, where he taught clinical ethics at the medical school and was Director of the Ethics Consultation Service at the affiliated teaching hospital, Strong Memorial. In addition Dr. Spike was the Course Director for the Medical Humanities Seminars, a required course offering a selection of 24 seminars on topics ranging from literature and creative writing to history and public policy. Dr. Spike also developed the concentration in Medical Humanities for medical students at Rochester.
Dr. Spike was Associate Professor in the Department of Medical Humanities and Social Sciences at the Florida State University College of Medicine from 2003-2009. At FSU he coordinated the integration of ethics into all four years of the curriculum, including an innovative sequence on narrative medicine in the clinical clerkships. Another educational innovation was an option for students to make a home visit to an elder and create a videotape documentary. He also helped the two hospitals in Tallahassee, Capitol Regional and Tallahassee Memorial, to begin ethics committees.
Dr. Spike has published over 50 articles, book chapters, book reviews, editorials, and commentaries in journals such as Annals of Internal Medicine, the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics and the Journal of Clinical Ethics. He is on the Editorial Board of and a regular contributor to the American Journal of Bioethics. He is frequently called upon to provide interviews to the media and has been interviewed by the Los Angeles Times, Tampa Tribune, ABC News, AMA News, and The Chronicle for Higher Education, and has appeared on Science Friday with Ira Flatow
One of Dr. Spike's primary interests in clinical ethics is the ethical importance of assessing capacity, a topic he finds central to issues in both geriatric ethics and pediatric ethics. Capacity assessment is vital to the entire range of medical issues, not just end-of-life issues. He also helped to organize and run annual work-shops on how to start and run an ethics consultation service for the American Society for Bioethics and the Humanities.
In medical education, one of Dr. Spike’s interests has been the value of using films and TV shows to provide demonstrations and promote discussions of the complex social interactions behind ethical, organizational, and professional decisions. He has written articles and facilitator guides to The Doctor, Lorenzo’s Oil, Dax’s Case, Wit, and an episode of Scrubs.
