Henk A.M.J ten Have, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor & Director, Center for Healthcare Ethics
Henk ten Have studied medicine and philosophy at Leiden University, the Netherlands. He received his medical degree in 1976 from Leiden University and his philosophy degree in 1983. He worked as a researcher in the Pathology Laboratory, University of Leiden (1976-1977), as a practicing physician in the Municipal Health Services, City of Rotterdam (1978-1979), and as a Professor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Limburg, Maastricht (1982-1991). From 1991 he was a Professor of Medical Ethics and the Director of the Department of Ethics, Philosophy and History of Medicine in the University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. In September 2003 he joined UNESCO as Director of the Division of Ethics of Science and Technology. In 2010 he was appointed as Director of the Center for Healthcare Ethics, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh.
He is involved in many public debates concerning palliative care, euthanasia, drug addiction, genetics, choices in health care and resource allocation. His research has focused on ethical issues in end-of-life care. He was the coordinator of the European Commission funded Project, 'Palliative Care Ethics'. Over the last decade, he has been particularly involved in debates on global bioethics, emphasizing the need to create bioethics infrastructures (teaching programs, ethics committees, legislation) in developing countries.
He serves on numerous editorial boards. He is editor-in-chief of Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy. He was co-founder and secretary of the European Society for Philosophy of Medicine and Health Care. He published Medische Ethiek (1998; 3rd revised edition 2009), a textbook for medical curricula (also translated in Lithuanian language) used in most medical schools in the Netherlands. His other books include Palliative Care in Europe. Concepts and Policies (Amsterdam, the Netherlands; IOS Press; 2001), Bioethics in a European Perspective (Dordrecht, the Netherlands; Kluwer Academic Publishers; 2001), The Ethics of Palliative Care. European Perspectives (Buckingham, UK; Open University Press; 2002), Ethics and Alzheimer Disease (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2004), and Death and Medical Power. An Ethical Analysis of Dutch Euthanasia Practice (Open University Press, 2005). At UNESCO he has been involved in a wide range of international activities in bioethics, such as capacity building on the basis of the Universal Declaration of Bioethics and Human Rights, particularly the establishment of national bioethics committees and the promotion of ethics teaching (with a current priority for Africa and the Arab Region). With UNESCO he published Environmental Ethics and International Policy Paris, 2006), Nanotechnologies, Ethics and Politics (Paris, 2007), and The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. Background, principles and application (Paris 2009).
Dr. ten Have is a member of the Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (in Madrid, Spain) as well as of the Royal Dutch Academy of Science (in Amsterdam, the Netherlands). From 2007 to 2010 he was an Honorary Research Professor in the School of Philosophy, University of Tasmania, Australia. In March 2008 he was awarded the title of Doctor Honoris Causa by the Medical University of Pleven in Bulgaria. In September 2008 he received the Oscar M.Ruebhausen Visiting Professorship, Department of Bioethics, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. In September 2008 he was awarded the Ethos Prize for Bioethics, sponsored by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal.