Email

ryan.dougherty@bcm.edu

Positions

Assistant Professor

Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, Texas United States

Addresses

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy (Office)

BCM Jewish Institute for Research (BCMD)
Suite 326DB BCM:420
Houston, TX 77030
United States

Education

PhD from University of California

08/2021 - Los Angeles, California

MSW from University of California

06/2017 - Los Angeles, California United States

BS from University of Michigan

04/2014 - Ann Arbor, Michigan United States

Professional Interests

• Clinical Ethics Consultation
• Health equity and justice for vulnerable populations
• Social scientific approaches to bioethical issues

Professional Statement

Ryan J. Dougherty, PhD, MSW is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine and a Clinical Ethics Consultant at Houston Methodist Hospital. Dr. Dougherty completed their Master and PhD in Social Welfare with an emphasis on community mental health practice and policy. They further completed their Fellowship in Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medicine in 2023.

Broadly, Dr. Dougherty examines how social systems construct bioethical issues and shape how societies respond to such problems, with a particular emphasis on the implications for vulnerable and marginalized populations. Their most recent ethnographic project studied this in relation to the use of involuntary psychotropic medications to address community violence, homelessness, and mass incarceration. Their current work is aimed at developing sociological methods to assist healthcare professionals, philosophers, and healthcare ethics consultants in analyzing complex ethical issues.

Selected Publications

• Dougherty, R.J., Fins, J. "Toward a social bioethics through interpretivism: A framework for healthcare ethics." Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics.;In press
• Pahwa, R., Dougherty, R. J., Kelly, E., Davis, L., Smith, M. E., & Brekke, J. S. "Is it safe? Community integration for individuals with serious mental illnesses." Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. 2020 Aug 31;32(7)
• Dougherty, R. J "The psychological management of the poor: prescribing psychoactive drugs in the age of neoliberalism." Journal of Social Issues. 2019;75(1):217-237.

Memberships

American Society for Bioethics and Humanities

Society for Social Work and Research