Our Team
John Rhee, MD
Co-Founder and Executive Director
Dr. Rhee is a Neuro-Oncology Fellow at Mass General Cancer Center and Dana Farber Cancer Institute. He has published on palliative care in Lancet Oncology, Journal of Palliative Medicine, and Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, and he is the author of the book APCA Atlas of Palliative Care Development in Africa. Dr. Rhee graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. with Honors and Distinction in Policy Analysis and Management. He was accepted into the Humanities and Medicine Early Acceptance Program at the Icahn School of Medicine where he was a Dean's Scholar in Global Health, inductee into the Gold Humanism in Medicine Honors Society, and graduated with an MD/MPH with Distinctions in Medical Education, Research, and Global Health. He was named Visiting Research Professor 2019-2021 at the Institute for Culture and Society at the University of Navarra for his work in global palliative care. Dr. Rhee is actively involved with bioethics, and was inducted for a five-year term as a Young Academician to the Pontifical Academy for Life, Vatican City, Rome and contributes to opinion pieces in MedPage Today and New York Daily News.
Ana Maria Dumitru, MD PhD
Fellow in Educational Programs
Ana Maria Dumitru, MD PhD, is a resident physician in General Surgery at the University of California in San Diego. Ana Maria holds a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in Biochemistry from Dartmouth’s Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies. She also holds a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree from Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine. During the course of her MD-PhD training at Dartmouth, Ana Maria received a number of awards including the Dartmouth Tucker Foundation Berthold Fellowship for Faith and Service, the Pano T. Rodis (Schwartz) Fellowship for Compassionate Medicine, the Dartmouth Graduate Community Award, the Merck Manual Award, and the E. Elizabeth French Distinguished Student Award in Pathology. Ana Maria has a particular interest in medical ethics, and has published articles on a range of current issues including women’s reproductive health, physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, and stem cell research.
Xavier Symons, PhD
Fellow in Educational Programs
Xavier Symons is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University. He previously worked as a bioethicist at the Australian Catholic University and The University of Notre Dame Australia. Xavier's research interests include ethical issues at the beginning and end of life, conscientious objection, the ethics of healthcare resource allocation, and pandemic ethics. His first book, Why Conscience Matters: A Defence of Conscientious Objection in Healthcare, was published in July 2022 by Routledge. Dr Symons is the recipient of a 2020 Fulbright Future Postdoctoral Scholarship and was a scholar in residence at Georgetown University’s Kennedy Institute for Ethics from September 2021 to March 2022. He holds degrees from the University of Sydney, the University of Oxford, and the Australian Catholic University.
Kayla Driver
Marketing Coordinator
Kayla Driver is the Marketing Coordinator at the Hippocratic Forum. Born and raised in Northern California, she made a big move east with her husband and children to Chicago. She attended California State University Monterey Bay and previously worked as a Team Supervisor and Administrator with NET Ministries. She is now a homemaker and stay at home mother to her three children.
Noah Hoonhout
Intern
Noah Hoonhout is a senior studying History and pre-med at Hillsdale College. He began working for the Hippocratic Forum in the summer of 2022, where he developed a undergraduate curriculum for pre-meds to be offered by the Hippocratic Forum. He also serves as president for the Hillsdale College Catholic Society and editor-in-chief for The Magazine, a student publication he helped start. He hopes to attend medical school after he finishes his undergraduate degree.
Samuel Ho
Intern
Samuel Ho is currently a junior at Harvard College where he studies Classics and Global Health and Health Policy. Outside of classes, he has been assisting in research on suffering and its relationship to well-being with the Human Flourishing Program, and he currently serves as the president of the Thomistic Institute Harvard undergraduate chapter, and as a Director of Administration for Harvard National Model UN. He hopes to pursue medicine in the future as he plans to apply to medical schools this upcoming summer.