Speaker Profile
Timothy Edward Quill

Timothy Edward Quill MD, MACP, FAAHPM

Hospice and Palliative Medicine, Internal Medicine
Rochester, New York, United States of America

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Timothy E. Quill, M.D. is the Georgia and Thomas Gosnell Distinguished Professor of Palliative Care, and Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry, Medical Humanities and Nursing at the University of Rochester School of Medicine (URMC). He was the Founding Director of the URMC Palliative Care Program and is the Acting Director of the URMC Paul M. Schyve Center for Bioethics. He is also a board certified palliative care consultant in Rochester, New York.

Dr. Quill has published and lectured widely about various aspects of the doctor-patient relationship, with special focus on end-of-life decision making, including delivering bad news, nonabandonment, discussing palliative care earlier, and exploring last-resort options. He is the author of several books on end-of life, including Physician-Assisted Dying: The Case for Palliative Care and Patient Choice (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), Caring for Patients at the End of Life: Facing an Uncertain Future Together (Oxford University Press, 2001), and A Midwife Through the Dying Process: Stories of Healing and Hard Choices at the End of Life (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), and numerous articles published in major medical journals including "Death and Dignity: A Case of Individualized Decision Making" published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Quill was the lead physician plaintiff in the New York State legal case challenging the law prohibiting physician-assisted death that was heard in 1997 by the U.S. Supreme Court (Quill v. Vacco).

Dr. Quill received his undergraduate degree from Amherst College (1971), and his M.D. from the University of Rochester (1976). He completed his Internal Medicine residency in 1979 and a Fellowship in Medicine/Psychiatry Liaison in 1981, both from the URMC. Dr. Quill is a Fellow in the American College of Physicians and in the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, an ABMS certified Palliative Care consultant, a past board member and past president of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, and a founding board member of American Academy on Communication in Healthcare.
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