Dan Bustillos, JD, PhD, Assistant Professor

An Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing & Health Studies, Dr. Bustillos has also held faculty appointments at Saint Louis University’s Center for Health Care Ethics, and its College for Public Health and Social Justice, as well as the Health Law & Policy Institute at the University of Houston Law Center. Dan is also active in health policymaking at both state and federal levels–most notably in the areas of health disparities, vaccination, cancer prevention, and pandemic preparedness.

Dan’s textbook Understanding Health Care Ethics & Medical Law was published in 2013.

Scholarship

As a medical humanist, health lawyer, public health policymaker and bioethicist, Dr. Bustillos has broad scholarship interests, though they mainly revolve around the moral, legal and philosophical issues surrounding medicine and public health. Through an interdisciplinary approach, Dan investigates issues of justice in health care and the meaning and experience of illness. He also studies the pedagogy of health professions education.

Currently, Dan is at work on a book manuscript on the landmark 1904 U.S. Supreme Court case of Jacobson vs. Massachusetts, and on how a historical re-contextualization of this case can help us understand current vaccination controversies.

Education

Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, TX

  • Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Health Disparities

University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Institute for the Medical Humanities
Houston, TX

  • Medical Law & Ethics Fellow

University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Institute for the Medical Humanities
Houston, TX

  • Ph.D. in Medical Humanities. Dissertation: Applying Hans Georg Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics to Crosscultural Understanding in Clinical Contexts.

University of Houston Law Center, Health Law & Policy Institute
Houston, TX

  • J.D. in Health Law & Policy

Lubbock Christian University
Lubbock, TX

  • B.A., Honors Humanities. Minors: Science and Spanish.

Contact

Email: danbus@uw.edu

Curriculum Vitae

Courses Taught

  • Humanism & The Medical Humanities
  • Foundations of Clinical Health Care Ethics
  • Law & Bioethics
  • Public Health Ethics
  • Health Law