Campus Statue at Healy Hall, Georgetown University

Welcome to the Edmund D. Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics

The PCCB faculty and staff pledge solidarity with social movements like Black Lives Matter and with Georgetown leadership who are seeking to promote justice and to address systemic racism and discrimination.  Read more

Edmund D. Pellegrino
Founding Director Edmund D. Pellegrino, MD
(June 22, 1920 – June 13, 2013)
Portrait by Jerry Crowley

The Pellegrino Center provides university-based ethics resources for individuals who shape and give health care. We are committed to the dynamic interplay between theory and practice, experience, and reflection. Center scholars bring expertise in theology, philosophy, basic science, and clinical practice to today’s ethical challenges. We seek to promote serious ethical reflection and discourse in pursuit of a just society and health care that affirms the dignity and social nature of all persons.


News and Announcements

SAVE the DATE! The 2023 Pellegrino Symposium will take place via ZOOM on Friday, May 12, 2023 from 1-3 pm EDT. More information coming soon.

Dr. Myles N. Sheehan, SJ, along with Dr. Dan Sulmasy, Dr. Kevin Donovan, and Dr. Allen Roberts, presented on “Brain Death: Diagnosis, Difficulties, and Potential Redefinition” on Wednesday, March 1, 2023 from 1 – 1:45 pm ET as part of the Catholic Health Association’s Emerging Topics in Catholic Health Care webinar series, co-sponsored by the Pellegrino Center. View the recording

The 2023 John Collins Harvey Lecture, “Covert Consciousness and Clinical Ethics: Neuroscience and Normative Obligations: A Conversation with Joseph J. Fins, M.D.” took place Friday, February 3, 2023 via Zoom. More information and recording

PCCB’s Dr. Claudia Sotomayor and Dr. Sarah Vittone were featured in a GUMC story on the Pellegrino Student Scholars Program

“Doctors Gave the Orders: 75 Years After the Nuremberg Medical Trial” Symposium co-sponsored with The Kennedy Institute of Ethics took place on December 1-2, 2022 More information

More News and Announcements



 COVID-19 Resources

PCCB Faculty Address COVID-19 Crisis

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Center for Clinical Bioethics Programs


cover image for 'Your Health: A Sacred Matter'

Your Health: A Sacred Matter

Watch this public television documentary on spirituality, religion, and medicine. Earn two free credits of CME/CEU for watching the entire film.

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