James D. Hearn, J.D., LL.M., M.A., M.A.T., MPH, D. Bioethics, D.Min.
Assistant Professor of Bioethics
Kansas City University
Rev. Dr. James D. Hearn, J.D., LL.M., M.A., M.A.T., MPH, D. Bioethics, D.Min., is currently an assistant professor of Bioethics at Kansas City University. He is a graduate of the Gould School of Law at the University of Southern California (U.S.C.) and obtained his Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Taxation from the University of San Diego School of Law. He also earned a second LL.M. in Alternative Dispute Resolution and Negotiation Theory from the Straus Institute at the Pepperdine School of Law and has served as a mediator for the Federal District Court in Los Angeles. At Straus his work focused upon the mediation of end-of-life disputes and his research included spending a year mediating such disputes in the ICU of a local hospital.
Dr. Hearn also received his Master of Theology degree from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena and his Diploma in Anglican Studies and Doctor of Ministry from Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, where his doctoral work focused on the area of pastoral bioethics. In 2020 he was ordained to the priesthood in the Anglican Church in North America and until leaving Los Angeles served as an assisting priest at All Saints Cathedral in Long Beach, California. He possesses a second doctorate in Bioethics from Loyola University – Chicago. In addition, he holds a Master’s in Public Health from the Gillings School of Global Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
He was a Lecturer in the Health Sciences Department at the California State University, Northridge for the 16 years before leaving for Missouri where he taught a variety of courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels including courses in death and dying, bioethics, and healthcare law. He has also taught at the Bioethics Center at Loyola-Marymount University in Los Angeles. Additionally, he taught in the Patient Advocacy Program offered through the U.C.L.A. Extension Program. Prior to leaving Los Angeles he was also teaching bioethics at Fuller Theological Seminary.
He has spoken in the United States, Canada, and Israel and published on a variety of topics including the ethics of pandemics, disaster ethics, social utility and bioethics, research ethics, the Hippocratic Oath, and medical school bioethics curriculum.
His research interests include clinical ethics and the impact of the “hidden curriculum” on graduate medical bioethics training, research ethics (especially the studies conducted on the African continent), public health ethics, and the development of a discipline that could truly be called “pastoral” bioethics.
Dr. Hearn discloses that he has no relevant financial relationships with any organization producing, marketing, reselling, or distributing health care goods or services consumed by, or used on, patients relative to the content of this presentation.
Dr. Hearn can be reached at jhearn@kansascity.edu or 417-208-0774.
