39: Daniel Callahan: International Leader in Bioethics, Technology, Aging, and End of Life Care

For the past several decades, Dr. Daniel Callahan has been involved in addressing a wide range of fundamental ethical issues that include: care and decision-making at the end of life, public health priorities, and new and emerging technologies. He is the president emeritus of the Hastings Center and a co-director of the Yale-Hastings Program in Ethics and Health Policy. Dr Callahan has served as a Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Medical School. Along with a doctorate in philosophy from Harvard, he has been awarded several honorary doctorates. He is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences. Additional honors include being the recipient of  the 1996 Freedom and Scientific Responsibility Award of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is the author or editor of 41 books and his articles have graced the pages of many distinguished periodicals, such as Daedalus, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and Health Affairs. In this interview, Mr. Callahan discusses serious problems facing Medicare, the difference between medicine and health, obesity and social pressure, and the "health care pyramid", among others.