Dr. Ashley Fernandes

Ashley K. Fernandes, MD, PhD, is a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the Associate Director of the Center for Bioethics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. He is the Director of Competency for Professionalism at The Ohio State College of Medicine, where he is also has a variety of leadership roles in medical education.

Dr. Fernandes received an MD from The Ohio State University, a PhD in Philosophy from Georgetown University, and an MA in Philosophy from Johns Hopkins University, with a focus on bioethics. He currently directs ethics education for all pediatric residents at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. His scholarly interests include pediatric ethics, Medicine and the Holocaust, bioethics education, professionalism education and remediation, and philosophical anthropology in medical practice. He has disseminated his work at international and national forums and is the author of scores of peer-reviewed publications and three book chapters. In 2019, he was awarded the prestigious Picker-Gold GME Challenge Grant to study and expand his ethics education curriculum. After 13 years practicing hospital pediatrics, he is now an academic primary care pediatrician in Nationwide’s Primary Care Division.

Dr. Fernandes is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, an elected member of the AAP’s national Executive Committee on Bioethics, a member of the AOA Medical Honor Society, and a member of the Gold Humanism Honor Society, receiving the prestigious Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine award twice—in 2020 and in 2010, a rare accomplishment. He has been awarded The Ohio State University College of Medicine’s Award in Mentorship in 2019, Professor of the Year Award in 2020, and Master Teacher Award in 2022. Outside of medicine, his interests include hiking in the National Parks, history, travel and tennis.