The Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA) consists of nine members—seven practicing physicians, a resident, and a medical student—who are nominated by the American Medical Association's President and elected by the House of Delegates. The seven physicians serve overlapping seven-year terms, while the medical student serves a two-year term and the resident serves a three-year term.
Regina M. Benjamin, MD, MBA—Chair
Dr. Benjamin is founder and owner of the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic in Bayou La Batre, Alabama. She is also Associate Dean for Rural Health at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine in Mobile where she administers the Alabama-AHEC program and previously managed its Telemedicine Program. She serves as current President of the Medical Association, State of Alabama. In 1998 she was the United States recipient of the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights. In 1995, she was elected to the American Medical Association Board of Trustees, making her the first physician under age 40 and the first African-American woman to be elected. She also served as President of the American Medical Association Education and Research Foundation (AMA-ERF) and is on the Boards of Physicians for Human Rights and the Tuskegee National Center for Bioethics.
Dr. Benjamin was a Kellogg National Fellow and a Rockefeller Next Generation Leader. She was named by Time Magazine as one of the "Nation's 50 Future Leaders Age 40 and Under", "Woman of the Year" by CBS This Morning, and received the 2000 National Caring Award which was inspired by Mother Teresa. Dr. Benjamin was elected to CEJA in 2002 and subsequently was appointed to an AMA Advisory Committee on Health Disparities in September 2002.
Dudley M. Stewart, Jr., MD—Vice Chair
Dr. Stewart is a board certified psychiatrist in private practice in New Orleans for the past 30 years, graduating from the University of Mississippi in 1967. He served as President of the Louisiana Psychiatric Medical Association and was voted "Psychiatrist of the Year," and received the Edward H. Knight MD Lifetime Achievement Award from his colleagues. He was the first psychiatrist to be elected as President of the Orleans Parish Medical Society, and went on to be elected to the office of President of the Louisiana State Medical Society. Currently he serves in the Assembly of the American Psychiatric Association, and is Vice Chair of the Committee on Government Relations of the APA. He served as an Alternate Delegate to the AMA House until his election to CEJA in 2003.
Sharon P. Douglas, MD
Dr. Douglas is Associate Professor of Medicine and Assistant Dean for VA Education at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine. She graduated from the University of Mississippi School of Medicine, where she also did residency training in Internal Medicine and fellowship training in Pulmonary Medicine. She is board certified in Internal Medicine and Pulmonary Medicine and a Fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians. At the G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery VA Medical Center she is Staff Pulmonologist, ICU/Pulmonary clinician and teacher, and Associate Chief of Staff for Education and Ethics. Dr. Douglas received a Certificate in Healthcare Ethics from the University of Washington, Seattle. She currently teaches ethics to the medical students, internal medicine residents, and pulmonary fellows at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine. She serves as Co-Chair of the VA Medical Center Ethics Committee and is a member of the National Ethics Committee for the Veterans Healthcare Administration. Her main ethical interest is in end of life ethics. She gives community talks to local groups on Mississippi Advance Directives. Dr. Douglas is also an EPEC Trainer (Education for Physicians on End-of-life Care) for the AMA. As well she is an instructor for the Bayer Institute of Healthcare Communication. She is certified in and an instructor for ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support). She also has a special interest in palliative care. Dr. Douglas was elected to CEJA in 2005.
Hilary E. Fairbrother, MD—Resident/Fellow Member
Dr. Fairbrother is a resident at New York Methodist Hospital in emergency medicine. She received her medical degree from Emory University School of Medicine in 2006. Dr. Fairbrother was elected to CEJA in 2006.
Susan Dorr Goold, MD, MHSA , MA
Dr. Goold earned her medical degree at the University of Michigan in 1987, then completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of Pittsburgh in 1990, and a general medicine–health services research fellowship at the University of Michigan Medical School. She earned a master's degree in health management and policy from the University of Michigan School of Public Health in 1992 and a master's degree in philosophy from Michigan State University in 1994.
Currently, Dr. Goold is an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Health Management and Policy at the University of Michigan and Director of the Medical School 's Bioethics Program. She serves as core faculty for the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program and directs the Graduate Medical Education in Ethics program at the UM Health System.
Dr. Goold has served on the bioethics committees of the Michigan State Medical Society, the American College of Physicians, and the Society of General Internal Medicine. She was a member of the American Medical Association's Working Group on Institutional Ethics (1998-2000). She has served on editorial boards of the Annals of Internal Medicine, the American Journal of Bioethics , the MIT Press, and Rowman and Littlefield, and on the boards for the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities and the International Society on Priorities in Health Care.
Dr. Goold's conceptual and empirical research focuses on the allocation of scarce health care resources, especially the priorities of patients and the public. Research and policy projects using the allocation simulation exercise CHAT (Choosing Healthplans All Together) have involved educators, community-based organizations, employer groups, and others in more than 20 states and several countries to obtain public input on health spending priorities. CHAT won the 2003 Paul Ellwood Award and Dr. Goold's paper “Will Insured Citizens Give up Benefits to Include the Uninsured?” was awarded the 2002 Mark S. Ehrenreich Prize for Research in Healthcare Ethics. Dr. Goold also pursues the philosophical and empirical study of trust relationships in health care settings, the impact of financing, care organization, and reimbursement on the doctor-patient relationship, the use of clinical trials for medical care by the uninsured, and institutional academic-industry relationships in medical schools. Dr. Goold was elected to CEJA in 2007.
H. Rex Greene, MD
Dr. Greene practices hematology-oncology in Lima, Ohio. He received a medical degree from the University of California Irvine Medical School in 1969 and completed his residency-fellowship at LA County-USC. Dr. Greene served as a Clinical Professor of Medicine USC-Keck School of Medicine Pasadena, CA from 1975-98. Dr. Greene has served a number of administrative roles including as a trustee from Los Angeles on the CMA BOT, Physician Director City of Hope National Medical, Director at the Dorothy E. Schneider Cancer Center and as Director of Palliative Care and Integrative Medicine at Mills-Peninsula Health Services. Since completing the EPEC (Education for Physicians on End-of-Life Care) training program in 1999 he has been a busy lecturer on pain management and end-of-life care.
Dr. Greene’s passion in medicine lies is in the arena of ethics and especially palliative medicine. Dr. Greene joined the Hastings Center during his residency training and has remained an associate member ever since, has been a consultant to the CMA’s Council on Ethical Affairs and chaired the bioethics committee at Huntington Memorial Hospital for ten years and had a great deal of hands on experience mediating ethical disputes.
In 1973-75 Dr. Greene was the sole resident to the AMA HOD. He returned as part of the California delegation in 1987 and served as alternate and delegate until 2003. Dr. Greene was elected to CEJA in 2006.
Patrick W. McCormick, MD
Dr. McCormick is a board certified Neurosurgeon and practicing partner of the Neurosurgical Network, Inc. in Toledo Ohio. Currently, he is also the Section Head of Neurosurgery at St. Luke's Hospital, serves a clinical appointment in the Department of Neurosurgery at the Henry Ford Hospital, and is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery-Division of Neurosurgery at the Medical College of Ohio School of Medicine.
In 1984, Dr. McCormick graduated from University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, and completed his internship and residency training in Neurosurgery at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan. He also completed a fellowship in Cerebrovascular and Skull Base Surgery at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. Dr. McCormick earned an MBA from the University of Michigan School of Business and completed Bioethics Graduate Studies as an AMA/MCW Fellow at the Medical College of Wisconsin and AMA.
Organized medicine has played a significant role in Dr. McCormick's career. Since 1995, he has represented Ohio as the Alternate Delegate to the American Medical Association-House of Delegates and represented the Lucas County Medical Association as a Delegate to the Ohio Sate Medical Association. Dr. McCormick was also president of the of the Academy of Medicine of Toledo and Lucas County.
Dr. McCormick is a past chairman of the Professional Affairs Committee of The Academy of Medicine of Toledo and Lucas County. Since 2003, he has been a Regional Ethics Committee Member at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center and recently was appointed an Ethics Committee Member at the American Association of Neurological Surgeons.
While Dr. McCormick serves in diverse roles in education, clinical practice, ethics, and organized medicine, the vast majority of his time is dedicated to evaluating and treating patients in his private community practice. As a neurosurgeon, he also covers a Level I trauma center 70 days each year. Dr. McCormick was elected to CEJA in 2008.
John W. McMahon, Sr., MD, FACS
Following over thirty years of active surgical practice in Thoracic, Vascular and General Surgery in Helena, Montana, Dr. McMahon is currently the Corporate Medical Director and Principal Clinical Coordinator of the Mountain-Pacific Quality Health Foundation. Dr. McMahon also serves as part-time general medical officer at Shodair Pediatric Psychiatric Hospital in Helena. In 1957 he graduated from St. Louis University School of Medicine, and subsequently completed a residency at St. Louis University in Surgery. Prior to being elected to CEJA in 2004, Dr. McMahon served as President, AMA Delegate, and Legislative Chairman of the Montana Medical Association.
Kavita Shah—Medical Student Member
Ms. Shah graduated from the Pennsylvania State University as a part of the six-year accelerated medical program with Jefferson Medical College. She has completed her second year of medical school at Jefferson and is concurrently earning her Masters in Bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania. She expects to graduate with her dual degree in 2009. Ms. Shah has served various positions previously such as regional vice-chair of the medical student section, state legislative chair, and chapter chair. She is a current member of the Pennsylvania delegation to the House of Delegates. She is also actively involved in research in pediatric endocrinology currently at Jefferson and previously at the National Institutes of Health. In addition, she is the studying medication compliance in the homeless population in Philadelphia. Ms. Shah was appointed to CEJA in 2007.
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