Aaron Rothstein
Fellow
Aaron Rothstein, M.D., is a fellow in the Bioethics, Technology and Human Flourishing Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is a neurovascular physician, neuroepidemiologist, and writer whose work explores the moral, cultural, and spiritual dimensions of medicine, with particular attention to the physician-patient relationship, medical ethics, stroke care, cognitive disorders, and the meaning of illness and healing.
Aaron Rothstein, M.D., is a fellow in the Bioethics, Technology and Human Flourishing Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is a neurovascular physician, neuroepidemiologist, and writer whose work explores the moral, cultural, and spiritual dimensions of medicine, with particular attention to the physician-patient relationship, medical ethics, stroke care, cognitive disorders, and the meaning of illness and healing.
Dr. Rothstein hosts EPPC’s podcast Searching for Medicine’s Soul, which examines how medicine can better serve human dignity and human flourishing in an age of technological power, institutional pressure, and moral uncertainty. His essays and criticism have appeared in The New Atlantis, Public Discourse, The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, and National Affairs. From 2014 to 2021, he wrote Practicing Medicine, a blog for The New Atlantis focused on the inner workings of medicine and its theoretical, practical, and ethical complexities.
His academic work focuses on stroke, cognitive outcomes, vascular neurology, and neuroepidemiology. He has published widely in peer-reviewed medical journals, including Stroke, JAMA Neurology, Neurology, JAMA Network Open, and The New England Journal of Medicine, and has served as an investigator or site principal investigator for multiple multicenter studies in vascular neurology.
Dr. Rothstein received his B.A. in History from Yale University and his M.D. from Wake Forest School of Medicine. He completed residency training in neurology at NYU School of Medicine, fellowship training in vascular neurology at the University of Pennsylvania, and an M.S. in Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is board-certified in neurology and vascular neurology.
You can follow him on X at @aaronrothstein
‘Doctored’ Review: Medical Promise Betrayed
Aaron Rothstein
When research into an experimental drug or medical procedure is called into question, the consequences can be devastating.
Articles
Wall Street Journal / January 24, 2025
Origins of the Modern Euthanasia Movement
Aaron Rothstein
As the ink on my medical degree was still drying, I covered a hospital’s oncology service at night, taking care…
Articles
National Affairs / September 1, 2024
Persecution and Israeli Academia
Aaron Rothstein
Many academics, perhaps recognizing the extreme nature of such boycotts, justify them by caricaturing Israeli policies as comparable to Nazism. It is only by such extreme assertions that boycotts can justify themselves.
Articles
The Public Discourse / February 14, 2024
Physician Burnout
Aaron Rothstein
Doctors don’t necessarily need less work to assuage burnout; they need to do more of the vocational work that gives their profession meaning.
Articles
National Affairs / January 1, 2024
‘If I Betray These Words’ Review: First, Do No Harm
Aaron Rothstein
Caught between the oaths they took as medical students and the demands of corporate healthcare, today’s doctors suffer moral injury.
Articles
The Wall Street Journal / April 3, 2023
An Open Letter to HHS Secretary Becerra on Ending the Covid-19 Public Health “Emergency”
Aaron Kheriaty, Aaron Rothstein, Rachel N. Morrison, Roger Severino, Ryan T. Anderson
Human flourishing requires both public health and individual liberty and an appropriate balance between these goods when they conflict. We know that human beings flourish in community; we are social by nature. As such, we should not be surprised that government Covid-19 regulations mandating school closures, lockdowns, masking, and vaccination have isolated us from our fellow citizens and imposed significant attendant harms. It is time to declare this emergency over and once again let people take responsibility for themselves.
Articles, Policy, Resources
Public Discourse / March 18, 2022
Little Data, Big Headlines
Aaron Rothstein
On overinterpreting Covid studies for clicks
Articles
The New Atlantis / September 8, 2021
Covid-19 and the Erosion of Civic Trust
Aaron Rothstein
The American public deserves the truth, even if it is not as favorable or definitive as we would hope. If our policy leaders and scientists cannot put their faith in us with all our faults and shortcomings, why ought we put our faith in them with all their faults and shortcomings?
Articles
Public Discourse / December 15, 2020
Dementia, Dualism, and What Makes Us Human
Aaron Rothstein
In many ways, demented patients present the greatest challenge to the question of what makes us human.
Articles
Public Discourse / June 6, 2019
A Passover in Self-Imposed Exile
Aaron Rothstein
A doctor spends Passover in East Africa, surrounded by disease and suffering, and reflects on the tenuous balance between order and disorder, exodus and return
Articles
Tablet / April 23, 2019
Why the Hippocratic Oath Still Matters
Aaron Rothstein
The Hippocratic Oath offers physicians of any generation guidelines, proscriptions, and prescriptions about how to be a good physician. We may not agree with all of its conclusions, but if we unthinkingly dismiss them, we do so at our own peril.
Articles
Public Discourse / June 11, 2018
Dazzling Dendrites
Aaron Rothstein
The importance of these two discoveries cannot be overstated. Treatments available for seizures, autoimmune diseases, depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, and more depend on the synapses between neurons; drugs act on receptors and chemicals in this space.
Articles
The Weekly Standard / March 16, 2018