Oliver Schirokauer, PhD, MD

Assistant Professor of Bioethics
Department of Bioethics
School of Medicine
Director of Medical Facilitation
Center for Biomedical Ethics, MetroHealth System
Director, Medical Student Bioethics Education
School of Medicine
Co-Director, Foundations of Clinical Medicine Seminars
School of Medicine

Oliver Schirokauer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Bioethics. His position is jointly supported by the Department of Bioethics and by Medical Education.

Dr. Schirokauer oversees the bioethics curriculum for the School of Medicine’s University Program (four-year Doctor of Medicine). He also co-directs and teaches in the preclinical seminars course for the students in the University Program. This course spans two years and consists of 50 sessions focused on topics related to the patient-provider relationship, communication, the patient experience, ethics, health equity, and professional identity.

Dr. Schirokauer is founder and director of the Medical Facilitation Program. Medical Facilitation is a clinical service for patients adjusting to major illness that provides support related to communication, information processing, and decision making. The program operates at the MetroHealth System and is housed in MetroHealth’s Center for Biomedical Ethics.

 

Teaching Information

Teaching Schedule

Current Educational Initiatives:

  • Medical Facilitation Education Pilot: 8-week course in which students from the nursing, physician assistant, and MD programs participate in the provision of Medical Facilitation services under faculty supervision. Students also attend a weekly didactic seminar in which they consider a wide range of topics related to Medical Facilitation. (Launch date: February 2024)
  • Health Equity Curriculum Expansion: Ongoing project implemented in collaboration with faculty in the Department of Bioethics and in Medical Education, to increase the presence of material related to historical trauma, systemic inequity, bias, global health, and advocacy in the M1/M2 curriculum
  • Ethics Debrief Program: Effort to increase the opportunities for clerkship students to process ethically challenging experiences. Sessions are currently offered as part of the clerkship didactics in Core 1 (Internal and Family Medicine) at MetroHealth and Core 2 (Pediatrics and Ob/Gyn) at University Hospitals.
  • Reflective Practice Pilot: M1 program designed in collaboration with faculty in Medical Education, to support spontaneous and interactive written reflection. (Launch date: January 2024)

     

Presentations

Selected Recent Presentations

Medical Students in the Hospital: Moral Transformation of One Sort or Another, Bioethics@Noon Grand Rounds, MetroHealth System, 2023 (remote), with M. Lapinski

Incarceration and Hospitalization, American Society for Bioethics and Humanities Conference, Portland, OR, 2022, M.L. Gerrek, O. Schirokauer (presenter)

Reframing Uncertainty for Medical Trainees, poster, Academy for Professionalism in Health Care Conference, Cleveland, OH, 2023

To See or Not To See the Patient, debate, American Society for Bioethics and Humanities Conference, Baltimore, MD, 2023, L. Ferrari, M.L Gerrek, S. Radwany, O. Schirokauer (moderator)

Education

MD
Case Western Reserve University
Medicine
2014
PhD
University of California, Berkeley
Mathematics
1992
BS
Yale College
Mathematics
1984