D. Micah Hester is Assistant Professor of Medical Humanities and Pediatrics at UAMS, as well as clinical ethicist at Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH).  Dr. Hester’s duties at UAMS include being the course director of the sophomore medical students’ medical ethics, serving on numerous university committees, and working on scholarly research in bioethical/philosophical areas.  At ACH he serves as an ethics educator/consultant.  He also remains active in local, regional, and national professional activities.

Dr. Hester’s scholarship has resulted in the publication of several authored and edited books as well as numerous journal articles (click here for an abbreviated list).  His monograph, Community As Healing was published 2001 by Rowman & Littlefield and develops a pragmatist ethic for physician-patient relationship.  A co-authored (w/Robert Talisse) book, On James (Wadsworth, 2004), explains the philosophical aspects of the thought of the pragmatist William James.  He has also edited volumes in computer ethics, the logic of John Dewey, and the idealism of William Earnest Hocking.  Some of Dr. Hester’s publications can be found in leading bioethics journals, such as the American Journal of Bioethics, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, and the Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics.  His current research is leading towards the publication of a book on end-of-life care ethics and another on educating hospital ethics committees.

Dr. Hester coordinates the Pediatric Ethics Consortium (a national professional initiative to promote pediatric ethics scholarship and education), serves as Secretary-Treasurer of the William James Society, and was the first non-physician affiliate member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Ethics.

 

Dr. Hester earned his PhD in philosophy from Vanderbilt University, after working for Microsoft and having received a bachelor’s degree from Pomona College.