Professor Tony Hope

Professor Tony Hope

Emeritus Fellow 

Biography:

Ronald Anthony (Tony) Hope was Professor of Medical Ethics at the University of Oxford and an honorary consultant psychiatrist.

Tony Hope's first degree at New College, Oxford, was in philosophy and physiology. He went on to complete a PhD (University of London) in developmental neurobiology at the National Institute of Medical Research, Mill Hill. He then studied medicine at Oxford and specialised in psychiatry, becoming honorary consultant in 1990. He was a Wellcome Trust Training Fellow and then Clinical Lecturer in Psychiatry at the University of Oxford. His main research area in psychiatry was in the behavioural problems of people with Alzheimer's Disease for which he won the Royal College of Psychiatrists Research Medal in 1989.

In 1990 Tony Hope became Leader of the Oxford Practice Skills Project which involved developing teaching courses in medical ethics, law and communication skills. In 1995 he became the first University Lecturer in medical ethics in the University of Oxford (Medical Sciences Division) and was made titular Professor in 2000. He founded the Ethox Centre within the University of Oxford's Department of Public Health, a Centre committed to research and teaching in medical ethics, and to clinical ethics support to hospitals and clinicians.

His main area of research interest is in medical ethics and especially the combination of empirical and philosophical work. He has done work across the field of clinical ethics including resource allocation and reproductive ethics but his main area of interest is in psychiatric ethics.

In addition to over 150 papers in the fields of neuroscience, mental health and medical ethics he has written a number of books including: being founding co-author of The Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine (editions 1-4, with Murray Longmore and others); Manage Your Mind (with Gillian Butler); Medical Ethics and Law: The Core Curriculum. (with Julian Savulescu and Judith Hendrick); Medical Ethics: A Very Short Introduction; and has co-edited Empirical Ethics in Psychiatry. 

In 2019, Tony was elected to an Honorary Fellowship at New College, Oxford.