Dr. Daniel Callahan

Dr. Daniel Callahan, President and co-founder of the Hastings Center will retire as president in the summer of 1996 (Hastings Center Report 1995; 25: 45). He conceived the idea of forming a center for bioethics in 1968. Together with his neighbour, Willard Gaylin, and the foggiest of notions on how they should go about the task, they got the Center off the ground in 1969. The rest, as the phrase goes, is history.

Dr. Callahan has served the Center as chief executive officer for twenty-six years, managing it, finding funds for it and directing its research and educational programs. In the process he has also written or edited twenty-five books.

Dr. Callahan offered the following explanation: ‘I speculate about the moral meaning of the life cycle and now I should live some of those ideas. There comes a time when every founder of an organisation should step aside to make room for the next generation of leadership. I decided a0 few years ago that once we passed the twenty-five year mark, my time would come. I have had a spendid and interesting journey. Good talk, good colleagues, good supporters, good issues: what more could a philosopher ask of life?’

‘But to retire from a role is not to retire from life. I will remain at the Center, happily expending and expanding my energies on that which I have liked the most over the years – my research and writing. Two questions will preoccupy me, both at the international level: What kind of medicine will be best for society ? What kind of society will be best for medicine? Immoderate questions, to be sure, but those are the kind I like. They will keep me busy.’

(For an interesting glimpse into Dr. Callahan’s style, see Ms. Ellen Moskowitz’s essay entitled ‘At the Center’ on the inside front cover of the same issue.)