Medical Ethics Speaker, Author, Professor

I now teach at Salve Regina University, Newport, RI as Adjunct Professor in the Philosophy Department.  And still teaching as Adjunct Professor for the Alden March Bioethics Institute, Albany Medical College, NY, my beautiful wife Brooke and I live in Rhode Island, the “Ocean State,” close to the sea. How did we get here?

As a start, “about me” is really “about us.” Like all of us, special relationships have and continue to shape that package out of which I carve who I am. I am still carving.

My passion for philosophy, intercultural studies, ethics, and healthcare has a long history.  It starts in Fukuoka, Japan, my mother’s birthplace and mine. That’s where she, Misae Kimura, and my Irish-American father, Tom Brannigan, fell in love. I was the first, ichiban, of four children. My two sisters, identical twins Maggie and Marie, were born three years later in Yokohama. My brother Tom saw the light of day just outside of Chicago while we were en route to Newport, Rhode Island, where my dad’s parents settled from their Irish roots. From early on, my siblings and I faced two seemingly irreconcialable cultures, a strange brew of sake and Guinness Stout.

We were the only Japanese, or Asians for that matter, in an Irish-Catholic neighborhood called Newport’s Fifth Ward. There, everyone walked. I always visited my Irish grandparents just a few blocks away. Grandma always had stew on hand, and Grandpa fed me a diet of books. It was probably his missionary magazines that inspired me to enter our diocese’s college seminary and afterwards Belgium’s prestigious Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven to study theology. Though I later left the seminary, I completed my Masters degree in Religious Studies and went on to complete my Ph.D. in Philosophy at Leuven’s Hoger Institute der Wisbegeerte. Throughout my stay in Belgium, I traveled throughout Europe on my BSA motorcycle “Kreimhilde.” These “on the road seminars” taught me lasting lessons in struggle, persistence, promise, loss, and hope. Friends, family, companions, and strangers were my real texts.

Upon my return to Newport, I life-guarded at nearby Sachuest Beach during summers and at hotel pools in winters. No way I could eke out a living life-guarding in New England, however, so I headed to New York and landed my first teaching gig at Mercy College (now University) in Dobbs Ferry, Westchester County. There, I worked with a fabulous group of colleagues and scholars in our Philosophy and Religious Studies Department. And some of the best students I had were full-time residents at Ossining State Prison, aka Sing-Sing, where I taught philosophy every other semester. Beyond measure, my real teachers were those patients with whom I worked as a Hospice Volunteer in North Tarrytown. Their key lesson –  Our time on this planet is limited, so each moment matters. Make it count.

My real game-changer occurred when I met an angel named Brooke. We married and moved to Pittsburgh, where I taught at La Roche College as Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies. I also founded and became the college’s Executive Director of its Institute for Cross-Cultural Ethics, at that time one of the few college-based initiatives to explore ethics from intercultural perspectives.

Kansas City and Albany

Real-life, clinical experience continues to enrich my appreciation of the intricate complexities in healthcare and to better grasp the world of patients and their suffering. This spurred me on to commit an academic taboo. Though a tenured full-professor, I left academia’s safe harbor to work for the well-known “think-tank,” Kansas City’s Center for Practical Bioethics, as Vice President for Clinical and Organizational Ethics. There, I worked with nearly 25 hospitals leading and coordinating ethics education with medical staff, nursing, social work, psychiatrists, chaplains, and ethics committees. As with my hospice patients, no education can ever replace my invaluable lessons from patients, their families, and their caregivers.

My return to academia came about when I was offered the George and Jane Pfaff Endowed Chair in Ethics and Moral Values at the College of St. Rose, Albany, New York. This was the first endowed chair in the college’s history. My role offered me the opportunity to engage further with students and community on significant issues in ethics. In addition, I was appointed as Adjunct Professor at the Alden March Bioethics Institute, Albany Medical College, where I continue teach online courses in bioethics and intercultural ethics (I designed the course “intercultural Bioethics”) for their graduate program. Add to this, my teaching part-time at Albany’s St. Bernard’s School of Theology and Ministry where I taught courses in Ethics.

I also became monthly columnist for the Albany Times Union, allowing me, an academic philosopher, a unique occasion to share my ideas with the general public. Indeed, that is the challenge in academia: to connect with and be a bridge to the community. My articles tackled all sorts of issues including concerns regarding culture, education, healthcare, digital technologies, communication, our screen-world, and living with robots – all having moral relevance. Along with my teaching, I organized a speakers series for the community hosting key, renowned scholars in ethics, experts who ‘walked the talk,’ who lived out their passion to serve others in the community. They embody the essence of philosophy – connecting with others and relieving others’ suffering. During my last few years at the college, as Dean of Spirituality as well as Endowed Chair, I wrote and focused more on the urgent need for dialogue among all faiths.

Other Gigs

Upon participating as visiting Faculty for Cardiff University’s Health Communication Research Centre’s Summer Session in Cardiff, Wales, and getting to know a wonderfully collegial and engaging group of international scholars, I became especially intrigued with the dynamic among communication, ethics, and medicine. I then spoke more extensively on this communication-ethics-medicine triad and on other subjects in medical ethics at numerous professional and public venues. For instance, The University of Missouri-Kansas City’s renowned Sirridge School of Medical Humanities and Bioethics awarded me the distinction of being the 2012 Medical Humanities Lecturer. I continue to speak at numerous professional and public venues, internationally as well. These include Tokyo University’s Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Law, Denmark’s University of Aalborg’s Communication, Medicine, and Ethics center, as well as at the Universities of Varese and Milan in Italy.

As you can see, my passion lies in exploring cultural perspectives, particularly in ethics and in healthcare. Through speaking engagements at numerous conferences, I’ve been fortunate to engage in dialogue with colleagues from various quarters throughout the world in places like Turkey, Cardiff, Tokyo, Kyoto, Salzburg, Italy, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. National, regional, and local venues have also kept me thoroughly engaged with communities and organizations including: the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics and other national conferences, colleges and universities, medical centers, hospital ethics committees, human resource associations, interfaith religious groups, senior citizen organizations, libraries, summer camps, arts and humanities groups, etc.

Rhode Island – Back to the Ocean State

“Retirement” is an ugly term. It denotes passivity. A better term is “refinement.” Since departing from Albany and returning to Rhode Island, I stay busy. I love teaching at Salve Regina University, a beautiful campus situated in Newport. There, I share my thoughts with earnest and caring students in Applied Ethics and Japanese Philosophy. And I still write and speak at various venues. My latest book Caregiving, Carebots, and Contagion was penned during the pandemic.  And having joined the U.S. Guard Auxiliary for the Pt. Judith Flotilla, I volunteer as an instructor in Paddle and Kayak Safety. Most importantly, I can now spend more time with my beloved Brooke, who continues to be with IBM as Life Sciences Quality/Compliance Officer. Truly amazing in her work – managing a complex team and project, organizing and directing key initiatives, etc. – she embodies professionalism, commitment, and caring as a leader in the truest sense.

And for fun? Well, I do not separate fun from work. I love philosophy, ethics, and all matters cultural. For leisure, however, my pursuits are varied – piano, guitar, swimming, kayaking, tennis (Brooke easily outshines me), martial arts exercises, and reading, reading, and more reading.

Brooke and I now nestle in our home in South Kingstown, close to the sea. We’ve recently taken up ballroom dancing, and we love it. Brooke is a natural, ever-patient with me. As always, Brooke keeps me anchored in what really matters.