Ronald W. Dworkin, M.D., Ph.D

Ronald W. Dworkin, M.D., Ph.D, practiced anesthesiology in a large medical center for thirty years. He also taught political philosophy and medicine and society in the George Washington University Honors Program, and worked as a Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute, where he headed up its Medicine, Society, and Culture project. He writes about medicine and society, and American culture and politics, for The Wall Street Journal, The American Scholar, Aeon, The New Statesman, and other publications. One of his Aeon essays was recently given a New York Times Sidney Award for one of the best nonfiction essays of 2025. He is currently an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia.

He is the author of several books about the world of medicine, and American culture.

 Check out his new bi-weekly blog, American Crazy, at Fusion.

Dr. Dworkin’s lectures to university, medical, and general audiences are filled with anecdotes from his medical career, but also with big ideas that connect different events in medicine, politics, and society, to help listeners make sense of them. Although medicine is his main area of interest, he has also written books and essays about American politics and culture more generally, with topics ranging from Alexis de Tocqueville to Saint Augustine to Karl Marx, including significant contributions to our understanding of “American exceptionalism” and American capitalism.  

Besides writing for numerous publications, he has appeared on The Today Show, C-Span Booknotes, MSNBC News, CBS Evening News, and other television and radio outlets.

He lives in Maryland.