J. Wesley Boyd

Wes Boyd is a professor of psychiatry and medical ethics at Baylor College of Medicine. He is also a Lecturer on Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

He obtained an MA in philosophy and a PhD in religion and culture, along with his medical degree, at UNC Chapel Hill. Wes completed his psychiatry residency training at Cambridge Hospital (now called Cambridge Health Alliance) and a fellowship in bioethics at Harvard Medical School.

Wes has taught extensively in the humanities, bioethics, human rights and psychiatry in various venues, including Smith College, Mt. Holyoke College, Harvard College, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Divinity School, as well as Baylor College of Medicine.

His areas of interest include social justice, access to care, human rights, asylum and immigration, humanistic aspects of medicine, physician health and well-being, the pharmaceutical industry, mass incarceration, and substance use.

His writing has appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association, New England Journal of Medicine, the Boston Globe, Newsweek, Time, and Psychology Today, among other media outlets. His work has been reported by Time, the Wall Street Journal, CBS, CNN, USA Today, PBS, NPR, US News and World Report, Hasan Minaj’s Patriot Act, and numerous other major outlets. His book, Almost Addicted, which was published in 2012 by Hazelden Press, won the Will Solimene Award by the New England chapter of the American Medical Writers’ Association.

Selected Publications

• Alpert M, Ramos M, Boyd JW "“The New Ketamine Based Antidepressant is a Rip-off.”." 2019 May 17; :
• Boyd JW. "“Having Health Insurance Doesn’t Mean Mental Health Care Access.”." 2019 July 3; :
• Mithani Z, Cooper JK, Boyd JW "Bioethics and Black Lives: A Call for Bioethics to Speak Against Racial Injustice." Hastings Center Blog. 2020 June 3; :
• Fox S, Gallagher E, Boyd JW. "When the treatment is torture: ICE must stop using solitary confinement for Covid-19 quarantine.." STAT News. 2020 August 7; :
• Grilley Green E, Truog R, Boyd JW. "How Ought Health Care Be Allocated? Two Proposals." Perspect Biol Med. 2019 62 (4): 765-777. Pubmed PMID: 31761806
• Flavin L, Malowney M, Patel N, Alpert M, Cheng E, Noy G, Samuelson S, Sreshta N, Boyd JW, "Availability of Buprenorphine Treatment in the 10 States With the Highest Drug Overdose Death Rates in the United States." J Psychiatr Pract. 2020 26 (1): 17-22. Pubmed PMID: 31913966
• Mithani Z, Cooper JK, Boyd JW. "Race, Power, and COVID-19: A Call for Advocacy within Bioethics." 2021 February ; 21 (2): 11-18. Pubmed PMID: 33289442
• Sreshta N, Patel N, Marlin RP, and Boyd JW "Who Seeks Asylum in the United States and Why? Some Preliminary Answers from a Boston-Based Study." Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics Journal. 2021 :
• Burke R, Ollada Lavery Y, Katznelson G, North J, Boyd JW. "How do individuals who were conceived through the use of donor technologies feel about the nature of their conception?”." Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics Journal.. 2021 :

Honors & Awards

• Fraiman Lecturer in Medical Ethics
• Cambridge Health Alliance (06/2017)
• Cambridge Health Alliance Academic Council Award for Excellence
  01/2017
• Cambridge Health Alliance Department of Psychiatry Leston Havens Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching
  01/2017
• Harvard Medical School Award for Excellence in Tutoring
  01/2017
• American Psychiatric Association’s Nancy C.A. Roeske, MD, Certificate of Recognition for Excellent in Medical Student Education
  01/2017
• Cambridge Health Alliance Adult Psychiatry Residency Graduation Speaker (voted by graduating residents)
  01/2019
• Harvard Medical School Master’s Degree in Bioethics Graduation Speaker (voted by graduating students)
  01/2019