Dr. Farhat Moazam
“If you look at the history of ethics — figuring out what’s the right thing to do, etc. — the longest history is connected to practice of medicine,” Moazam says. “So, ethics and medicine have all along had a very close relationship, and you can trace it back to Hammurabi’s Code. Therefore, as a physician, to not be involved in ethics makes you a technician and not really a good doctor.”
Moazam is a pediatric surgeon and the founding chairperson of Centre of Biomedical Ethics and Culture (CBEC), which is housed in the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) in Karachi, Pakistan. She is also the founding chairperson of the department of surgery and the first associate dean for post-graduate medical education at the Aga Khan University in Karachi. In the U.S., she is a fellow of the Institute of Practical Ethics and The Hastings Center, which named her a recipient of its 2022 Bioethics Founders’ Award for her contributions to the field.
“I’m thrilled at getting this award,” Moazam says. “And in some ways, the award is for the work that we’re doing through our center in Pakistan and also with some of the work that I’ve been involved in in bioethics with the [World Health Organization (WHO)] and with the International Association of Bioethics. The award recognizes not just the international involvement I’ve had in both ethics and institutional building, but really a recognition of our part of the world. I feel really pleased that this is a recognition of this part of the world for the work we are doing here.”
According to the Hastings Center, Moazam was a board member of the International Association of Bioethics 2009-2014 and has worked with WHO on matters such as international guidelines for ethical transplantation of human organs and tissues.
CBEC, inaugurated in 2004, is the only bioethics center specific in its focus on bioethics research and education in Pakistan, according to Moazam. The center works to build capacity in the field, educate practitioners, conduct biomedical research, and examine medical ethics.
Moazam holds a master’s degree in bioethics and a doctorate in religious studies from the University of Virginia.
