Professor Brian Hurwitz

Brian Hurwitz is D’Oyly Carte Professor of Medicine and the Arts in the Department of English. He is a medical practitioner affiliated to the Division of Health and Social Care Research, King’s College London, directs the Centre for the Humanities and Health and is a member of the Steering Advisory Board of the Centre for Life-Writing Research at King’s.

Research Interests and PhD Supervision

Professor Hurwitz's research interests encompass clinical medicine and narrative studies in relation to medical practice, ethics, law and the literary interface between medicine and humanities and arts disciplines.

He collaborates with Neil Vickers in convening and teaching the MA in Literature and Medicine and with Lara Feigel in convening the KCL MSc programme in Medical Humanities.

Brian welcomes applications for PhD topics related to any of his research interests. For more details, please see his full research profile.

Teaching

Professor Hurwitz collaborates with Neil Vickers in convening and teaching the MA in Literature and Medicine and with Janis Caldwell in convening the KCL MSc programme in Medical Humanities.

Expertise and Public Engagement

In April 2011 Professor Hurwitz delivered the Fitzpatrick Lecture at the Royal College of Physicians.

Professor Hurwitz is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, Chronic Illness and Clinical Medicine and previously sat on the boards of Cases Journal (2009-10) and the Journal of Medical Ethics (2002 -2009).  He was guest editor of the BMJ theme issue, ‘What's a good doctor, and how can you make one?’ (BMJ Sept 2002) and assistant editorial adviser to the theme issue ‘What is a good death?’ (BMJ July 2003).

He served as series editor to Radciffe Press on its Medical Ethics – a Living Literature project (three bioethical novels by Hazel McHaffie: Vacant Possession, Paternity, Double Trouble (2005) and co-coordinated the Popularization of Science project of ACUME-2, a European Thematic Network examining interfaces between arts, humanities and the sciences.

Together with Neil Vickers he co-edits the Medicine and Literature series for Clinical Medicine, the Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of London.

He acted as medical adviser to three dramas commissioned and broadcast by the BBC World Service:

• The Art of Dying by Claire Luckham 2006
• Birthing Stories by Claire Luckham Feb 2008
• The Good Doctor by Mike Walker (a drama documentary about Harold Shipman) 

Honorary Chairs

Professor Hurwitz holds Honorary Chairs at the Centre for Value, Ethics, Law and Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Sydney, in the School of Humanities and the Faculty of Medicine at Hong Kong University and at the Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, University College London. 

Memberships 

• Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners
• Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London
• Council Member of the Association of Medical Humanities 2000 continuing
• Member of the Royal College of Physicians Working Party on ‘Improving Communications Between Doctors and Patients’ 2009 continuing
• Member of the Parkinson’s Disease Guideline Development Group National Collaborating Centre for Chronic Conditions (for National Institute of Clinical Excellence) 2004-06