Dr Farhat Moazam, M.D, FACS, PhD
Dr Moazam is Professor and Founding Chairperson of the Centre of Biomedical Ethics and Culture (CBEC), SIUT of the Sindh Institute of Medical Sciences (SIMS) in Karachi, Pakistan. CBEC was inaugurated in October 2004 and designated a WHO Collaborative Centre for Bioethics for the Eastern Mediterranean Region in 2017. Previously Dr Moazam was Professor and Founding Chairperson of the Department of Surgery (1985-1995) and the first Associate Dean of Postgraduate Medical Education (1995-2000) at the Aga Khan University (AKU) in Karachi. She is an American board certified pediatric surgeon with an MA in Bioethics and a Doctorate (2004) from the Department of Religious Studies, University of Virginia, USA. Dr Moazam’s doctoral dissertation was published titled Bioethics and Organ Transplantation in a Muslim Society: A Study in Culture, Ethnography, and Religion (2006, Indiana University Press, USA).
Dr Moazam is Fellow of the Institute of Practical Ethics and Visiting Professor, Centre for Humanism in Medicine, UVA, and International Fellow of The Hastings Center, New York. In 2022, Dr Moazam received the Hastings Center Bioethics Founders’ Award for her “accomplishments as a pediatric surgeon, educator, ethicist, ethnographic researcher and institution builder.” In 2014, she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for promotion of bioethics education and ethical organ transplantation programs at the 5th National Bioethics Conference, Bangalore, India. She has an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Zurich, Switzerland (2012) for “her Fundamental contributions towards ethics and organ transplantation in Pakistan.”
She served on the Board of Directors (2009-2014) of the International Association of Bioethics, and has collaborated with WHO on various projects including updating the international guidelines for ethical transplantation of human organs and tissues. She was a member of the WHO Ebola Ethics Working Group that formulated ethical guidelines for health professionals during global epidemics. Currently she is a member of the WHO Working Group on Clinical Ethics. She is a member of the National Bioethics Committee, Pakistan and chaired its subcommittee dealing with healthcare ethics education until 2018.
Dr Moazam’s areas of interest in bioethics include research and education with a focus on cross- cultural ethics in clinical medicine. She has authored articles related to pediatric surgery, medical education, and bioethics in international journals that include The Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, Journal of Clinical Ethics, The Hastings Center Report, Asian Bioethics Review, Journal of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, Bioethics, and The Journal of Medical Health and Philosophy.
Dr Moazam has been an invited speaker in various national and international forums and universities. These include the WHO, International Association of Bioethics, the Asian Bioethics Association, and the Islamic Organization of Medical Sciences. She has delivered invited talks at the University of Pennsylvania (5th Annual Renee C. Fox Lecture), University of Texas (John P. McGovern Lecture), the National University of Singapore, and the University of Florida among others.
