Overdose Deaths and Cross-sector Collaboration.

Assistant Professor in Population Health Sciences, Duke School of Medicine
Assistant Research Professor of Theological Ethics & Associate Director of the Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative, Duke Divinity School

I hold a dual appointment in the School of Medicine's Department of Population Health Sciences and Duke Divinity School. My primary areas of scholarship include addiction and community engagement, bioethics, political theology, public health, and theological ethics. My current research projects focus on competing conceptions of agency within the modern hospital, religious responses to the opioid crisis, and developing new interdisciplinary work at the intersection of theology and public health.

Areas of Expertise: Addiction and Community Engagement, Bioethics, Qualitative Research, Political Theology, and Theological Ethics

Farr Curlin, MD, is Josiah Trent Professor of Medical Humanities in the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, & History of Medicine and Co-Director of the Theology, Medicine and Culture Initiative (TMC) at Duke University. Dr. Curlin has worked to bring attention to the intersection of medicine, ethics, and theology. In 2012 he helped to found both the University of Chicago’s Program on Medicine and Religion and the annual Conference on Medicine and Religion. Since 2015, through Duke Divinity School’s TMC Initiative, he and colleagues have brought graduate theological training to those with vocations to health care. Starting in 2023, Dr. Curlin also is working with colleagues across North America to develop the Hippocratic Society, an association of students and practitioners dedicated to fulfilling the profession to heal. He is co-author, with Chris Tollefsen, of The Way of Medicine: Ethics and the Healing Profession (Notre Dame University Press, 2021), as well as more than 150 articles and book chapters addressing the moral and spiritual dimensions of medical practice.