Raanan Gillon

Raanan Evelyn Zvi Gillon FRCP (born April 1941) was a professor of medical ethics at Imperial College London (1995–1999) where he now holds an emeritus chair. A general practitioner until his retirement in 2002, he edited the Journal of Medical Ethics from 1980 to 2001. Gillon is credited with making "a major philosophical contribution to critical thinking about moral issues raised by the practice of medicine" and with being "the leading British advocate and interpreter of Beauchamp and Childress's four principles approach" to moral reasoning in healthcare.

Raanan Gillon was born in April 1941 in Jerusalem, to a Jewish father and English mother who had converted to Judaism. At the age of seven, he moved with his family to London, where he attended Marlborough Primary School in Chelsea and the Anglican "Royal, Religious and Ancient Foundation" of Christ's Hospital School, also known as the Blue Coat School. He resisted the school's encouragement to be confirmed in the Church of England and his father's efforts to have a Jewish Bar Mitzvah. He has been an atheist ever since, albeit one who is sympathetic to religion.

Gillon's interest in medical ethics was stimulated during his undergraduate training; during this time he won a British Medical Association (BMA) student essay prize on the set title "Suicide and Voluntary Euthanasia". Following his graduation from medicine in 1964, Gillon wished to pursue a doctorate in Medical Ethics, but was discouraged by Oxford University's Regius Professor of Medicine, Sir George Pickering, on the grounds that the topic was not one that could be studied. While he was rejected for a house (hospital training) post in paediatrics he was offered one in geriatrics, something he attributed to his prize-winning essay where he had argued for legalisation of physician assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia, a position he now repudiates. Rejecting a position in geriatrics, he subsequently worked for seven years as a medical journalist for the Medical Tribune before returning to medical practice.

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