Richard A. Demme, M.D.

Dr. Richard Demme received BA degrees in Biology, and Greek and Roman Civilization at SUNY at Buffalo. He attended medical school at SUNY Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse on a scholarship from the US Air Force. He completed his Internal Medicine Residency training at Wilford Hall US Air Force Medical Center, followed by Nephrology training at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, in the Harvard program.

Dr. Demme has been a board certified nephrologist for over 20 years. He is an Associate Professor of Medicine, Humanities and Bioethics at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC). His outpatient care focuses on treatments for kidney transplant and dialysis patients. Dr. Demme recently completed 6 years on the national UNOS transplant ethics committee.

Dr Demme is the Director of the Strong Memorial Hospital Clinical Ethics Consult Service, the URMC Bioethics Program Director, and has been Chair of the University of Rochester Medical Center Ethics Committee since 2002. He is Co-Director of the Division of Medical Humanities and Bioethics.

Areas of interest include ethical issues in transplantation, decision-making at the end of life, forensic Nephrology, medical history, and the use of movies in education.

Over the past several years, he has collected over 350 movies that mention or demonstrate issues about organ retrieval and transplantation. He uses clips from these movies to introduce transplant topics for conversation and education.