David J. Doukas, MD

David John Doukas, MD is the James A. Knight Chair of Humanities and Ethics in Medicine, and Professor of Family and Community Medicine at Tulane University School of Medicine, where he directs the Program on Medical Ethics and Human Values. He also was Founding President of the Academy for Professionalism in Health Care (2012-2019), an organization devoted to enhancing professionalism through ethics and humanities education. He teaches and writes in the areas of professionalism, primary care bioethics, human genetics, and end-of-life decision-making.

Prior to accepting his current responsibilities, Professor Doukas served on the faculty of Georgetown University, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Louisville teaching and writing in the areas of professionalism, clinical ethics, primary care bioethics, human genetics, and end-of-life decision-making. He is interested in understanding the ethical implications of value judgments that patients and physicians use in the informed consent process, and has written on the need to better understand the ethical obligations of physicians in working with families with an emphasis on better articulating the boundaries of the physician-family relationship. He is the author of the concept termed the family covenant (1991), a healthcare agreement between a health provider and entire family that sets out to address proactively issues revolving around individual and family claims to medical information. He is the co-developer and author of the Values History (1988) as a method for eliciting the values and advance directives of patients toward life-prolonging care. The Values History has been widely cited as a valuable model for identifying relevant patient values important in end-of-life care decision-making. He co-authored the book, Planning for Uncertainty (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993, 2^ndedition 2007) with William Reichel, M.D., which examines the evaluation of patient values and their relevance to advance directive selection.

Professor Doukas’ degrees include a B.A. in Biology and Religious Studies from the University of Virginia and an M.D. from Georgetown University School of Medicine. After his Family Practice residency (University of Kentucky), he completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Bioethics (1986-87) at the Joseph and Rose Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University and the Franklin Square Hospital Center.

https://medicine.tulane.edu/departments/family-community-medicine-program-medical-ethics-and-human-values-mdms-bioethics-0