Rate My Professor Neil Pickering

Professor Neil Pickering is Professor in the Department of Bioethics at the University of Otago Faculty of Medicine. Originally from the United Kingdom, where he worked in bookshops and for the Quakers before developing an interest in bioethics, he holds a BA (Gen Hons) from Exeter University, MPhil from the Council for National Academic Awards, MA in Philosophy and Health Care, and PhD from the University of Wales, Swansea. His PhD investigated the conceptual question of whether mental illness constitutes the same kind of illness as physical conditions, a topic later published as the book The Metaphor of Mental Illness (Oxford University Press, 2005).

Pickering joined the University of Otago Bioethics Centre in 1999 at the invitation of then-Director Professor Donald Evans. He has taught in the Centre's postgraduate papers, the MBChB programme, and other health professional courses, and assisted in expanding its undergraduate programme. His academic interests encompass the philosophy, concepts, and ethics of health and disease; philosophy and ethics of mental health, including fundamental questions about suffering in body or mind; limits of scientific, biologically based medical understanding; foundational concepts of disease, illness, and health informed by Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy such as family resemblance; decision-making capacity and competence; medical humanities with emphasis on literature in ethics teaching; alternative medicine; cultural issues in bioethics; and environmental ethics. Key publications include "Threats to Humanity and Doctors' Duties" (Emergency Medicine Australasia, 2026), "Equity in the ICU: An Exploratory Qualitative Study of the Ethical Acceptability of a Reserve System for Allocating Limited ICU Resources" (Journal of Medical Ethics, 2026), "Risk-Related Standards of Competence are a Nonsense" (Journal of Medical Ethics, 2022), "Winging It: A Qualitative Study of Knowledge-Acquisition Experiences for Early Adopting Providers of Medical Assistance in Dying" (Palliative Medicine Reports, 2022), and "Because it was New: Unexpected Experiences of Physician Providers during Canada's Early Years of Legal Medical Assistance in Dying" (Health Policy, 2021). He chaired the National Ethics Advisory Committee for three years, served on the Health Research Council Ethics Committee, is Vice-President of the Australasian Association of Bioethics and Health Law, and delivered his Inaugural Professorial Lecture "Getting Clear about Concepts" in 2025.