Angelo e. Volandes, MD

Dr. Angelo E. Volandes is faculty member in the General Medicine Unit at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He received his BA in philosophy from Harvard College and his medical degree form the Yale School of Medicine. Following medical school, Dr. Volandes completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He then completed fellowships in medical ethics at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital. He was named the Edmond J. Safra Faculty Fellow in 2004-5 at the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.

Dr. Volandes was the Principal Investigator on a recently published study in the Archives of Internal Medicine on the use of video images of dementia in advance care planning. (Video available at: http://homepage.mac.com/avolandes/AlzheimersVideo/iMovieTheater18.html. He is currently the PI of a project that compares the effect of a video decision aid of dementia to verbal descriptions on the medical decision making of elderly patients with dementia.

Dr. Volandes' research is focused on empirical philosophical analyses of entemporary ethical issues in medicine. His interests include medical decision-making, Alzheimer's disease, health inequalities at the end of life, genetic enhancements, pre-natal genetic diagnosis and theoretical frameworkds for medical ethics. His work had appeared in the American Journal of Bioethics, the Journal of Clinical Ethics and the Journal of Medical Ethics. He has also produced and directed a film documentary on the patient doctor relationship, Illness As Experience. (Film clip available at: http://homepage.mac.com/avolandes/iMovieTheater34.html.)