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Daniel Sokol (1978- ) is a medical ethicist at St. George’s Hospital, University of London. He is known in particular for advocating the use of professional ethicists in British hospitals,

In 2007, Sokol founded and directed the UK’s first course in applied clinical ethics (ACE) for clinicians, based at Imperial College, London. He is a Council member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the UK Ministry of Defence’s Research Ethics Committee, the Imperial NHS Trust Clinical Ethics Committee, the St George’s NHS Trust Clinical Ethics Committee, and the Osler Club of London.

Sokol is a semi-professional close-up magician and often uses his magic to illustrate his lectures and after-dinner speeches. He has lectured in Canada, the United States and New Zealand as well as in England.

BIOGRAPHY

Educated in France until the age of 11, Sokol thereafter attended Winchester College, before entering St Edmund Hall at Oxford where he finished with First Class Honours. Upon winning the 3rd Oxfordshire Science Writing competition in 1999 he obtained a Wellcome Trust scholarship to study the History of Medicine at Green College, Oxford. Upon receiving his Masters at Oxford, he entered Imperial College London where he obtained a Masters and then a PhD in Medical Ethics with a thesis on “Truth-telling and benignly intended deception in the doctor-patient relationship: a philosophical and empirical analysis”), also funded by the Wellcome Trust.

After receiving his doctorate, he was invited to lecture at Keele University where he stayed for one year before moving to St George’s Hospital, University of London, where he has been a Lecturer since 2008. He remains an Honorary Research Fellow at Imperial College London.

He has co-authored a prize-winning textbook on medical ethics and law for students. Since 2007, he has written a regular column for the British Medical Journal. It is in this column that Sokol has decried the injustice of bogus authorship in scientific publications, questioned the validity of professional guidelines on confidentiality, described the ‘essence of medicine’, warned of the dangers of conflating law and ethics, defended the morality of assisted suicide, called for greater involvement of doctors in medical ethics, introduced the idea of an ethics checklist to be used in hospital ward rounds, and supported the adoption of the phrase ‘Allow Natural Death’ to replace ‘Do Not Resuscitate’. He has also published articles in the International Herald Tribune, The Times, The Guardian and the BBC News Online. He is Associate Editor of the Postgraduate Medical Journal and BioMedCentral Medical Ethics.

He has three brothers who also live in London. He is the son of Ronald P. Sokol.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books • Sokol, D. Bergson, G. Medical Ethics and Law; Surviving on the Wards and Passing Exams. London: Trauma Publishing; 2005. Book chapters • Gillon, R., Sokol, D. ‘Confidentiality’ in Singer, P., Kuhse, H. (eds) A Companion to Bioethics 2ndedition, Oxford: Blackwell. (2009) • Sokol, D. ‘Medical ethicist’ in Eccles, S., Sanders, S. (eds) So you want to be a brain surgeon? A medical careers guide 3rd edition, Oxford: OUP (2008)

Selected Articles • The death of DNR, British Medical Journal, May 02 2009, 338:b1723 • Rethinking ward rounds, British Medical Journal, March 05 2009, 338:b879 • When can doctors stay away? British Medical Journal, January 16 2009, 338:b165 • But you’re not a doctor, British Medical Journal, January 3 2009, 337:a3077 • Argus and the cyclops in the clinic, British Medical Journal, September 2008, 337:a1562 • Clarifying best interests, British Medical Journal, July 2008, 337:a994 • “What does the law say”, British Medical Journal, July 2008, 337 (301):a617 • The essence of medicine, British Medical Journal, May 2008; 336:1163 • Medicine and the Arts: reflections on harm, Academic Medicine 2008, 83 (12): 1167-1168. • The Four Quadrants approach to clinical ethics case analysis; an application and review, Journal of Medical Ethics 2008, 34: 513-516. • Letter to a new medical student, Lancet Student, November 2007, Available online: http://www.thelancetstudent.com/2007/11/22/letter-to-a-new-medical-student/ • The ethical junior; a typology of ethical issues faced by house officers, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 2008, 101:67-70. • William Osler and the jubjub of ethics; teaching medical ethics in the 21st century, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 2007, 100:544-546 • Can deceiving patients be morally acceptable?, British Medical Journal 2007, 334: 984-986 • Streetwise ethics, British Medical Journal, December 2006, 333 (7589), 1226. • Dissecting ‘deception’, Cambridge Quarterly of Health Care Ethics, October 2006, 15:457-464.