Patrick T. Smith, PhD is Associate Research Professor of Theological Ethics and Bioethics at Duke Divinity School and Senior fellow for the Kenan Institute of Ethics. He is also associate faculty with the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, and the History of Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine. He previously served as an Assistant Professor of Philosophical Ethics and Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, MA; a principal faculty member for the "initiative on Health, Religion, and Spirituality," at Harvard University, and from 2013–2015 as a Research Fellow in Medical Ethics through the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics (formerly the Division of Medical Ethics, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine).
Dr. Smith has worked professionally in clinical contexts dealing with the ethics of hospice care. As a student and product of the black Baptist church tradition that flows from the African-American Christian experience, he seeks to integrate its spiritual, theological, and ethical resources for a public theology that bears witness in the form of a robust social ethic. He currently serves on the board of directors for the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities and is a fellow in CBHD’s Academy of Fellows. Along with regional commitments, he is dedicated to global education having taught courses and provided lectures to pastors, medical professionals, educators, and community leaders in Kitwe, Zambia; Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; and various regions in the West Indies.
Dr. Smith was a research consultant for “A National Faith Community Atlas on End-of-Life Spiritual Care: Informing a Religious Community Educational Intervention to Address End-of-Life Cancer Disparities” project. He previously worked as the Ethics Coordinator for Angela Hospice Care Center in Livonia, MI. He has served on the Ethics Advisory Council for the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, as a board member for the Hospice Palliative Care Association of Michigan, and the Community Ethics Committee sponsored by the Harvard Ethics Leadership Group, and on the Children's Hospital Boston Ethics Advisory Committee.
His educational background includes a BS in Business Administration, MDiv from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Deerfield, IL), MA, PhD in philosophy from Wayne State University (Detroit, MI). He has given numerous seminars and professional presentations on a wide range of topics at professional meetings and conferences in various health care organizations, churches, on radio, and college and university campuses. He enjoys listening to classic jazz and watching baseball and college football. He and his wife have two beautiful children.
Dr. Smith is a former Fellow (2015-2020) of The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity.
Updated August 2018
