Ruth Groenhout: In Memoriam

I was saddened to learn this week that Ruth Groenhout has passed away. A distinguished professor at UNC Charlotte in the United States, and a leading authority on the ethics of healthcare, Ruth was my guest on Episode 5 of the Careful Thinking podcast, in March this year.

I knew that Ruth had been ill: she warned me in advance of our conversation that ‘chemo brain’ meant she might occasionally forget an obvious word, and that this had happened to her once or twice when she was teaching. As Ruth noted in her email to me, with her characteristic good humour: ‘Honestly, losing “rationality” when you’re lecturing on Socrates is just a pain!’ However, in the event, there were no signs of this during the recording, and indeed she made no further mention of her illness or her treatment.

In fact, Ruth could not have been more full of energy, enthusiasm and ideas. Her personal warmth, thoughtfulness and humanity shone through in the episode, and it was a delight and a privilege to finally meet her, if only ‘virtually’, and to talk about her valuable contribution to care theory. As I mentioned in the episode, I came across Ruth’s book Connected Lives: Human Nature and an Ethics of Care some years ago, when I was first beginning to be interested in care ethics, and I’ve found it to be one of the most accessible and thought-provoking introductions to the subject, and one I would warmly recommend. On a personal level, I’ve also found Ruth’s writings on the connections and tensions between feminism, care ethics and Christian faith enormously helpful.

My thoughts and prayers are with Ruth’s family and friends. May she rest in peace.

Here’s an extract from the tribute to Ruth which was posted on the website of her university:

Ruth Groenhout (1962–2024), Distinguished Professor of Healthcare Ethics at UNC Charlotte, passed away on October 16. Groenhout wrote widely at the intersection of care ethics, feminism, and Christian ethics, as reflected in the three monographs she authored: Care Ethics and Social Structures in Medicine (Routledge, 2019); Bioethics: A Reformed Look at Life and Death Choices (Faith Alive, 2009); and Connected Lives: Human Nature and an Ethic of Care (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004). She also co-edited two volumes—Transforming Care: A Christian Vision of Nursing Practice (William B. Eerdmans, 2005) and Philosophy, Feminism, and Faith (Indiana University Press, 2003)—and wrote nearly thirty articles and book chapters. Over the past few years she was working on a book-length manuscript tentatively titled Defining Health.

Beginning in 2018, Groenhout taught a popular annual course at UNC Charlotte on the Philosophy of Death and Dying, which in recent years covered discussions of death in Greek and Roman philosophy; issues surrounding genocide, death, and justice; and end-of-life care in modern medicine. She also regularly taught the required methods seminar for first-year Master’s students in Ethics and Applied Philosophy.

Groenhout spent much of her childhood in Oaxaca, Mexico, and studied pre-medicine and philosophy as an undergraduate at Calvin College.  She completed her PhD in philosophy at the University of Notre Dame in 1993.  After a year at Spalding College and two at Southwest Missouri State University, she moved to Calvin College in 1996, where she worked until 2017, serving as Chair from 2013 to 2017. She moved to Charlotte in August 2017 as Distinguished Professor of Healthcare Ethics, where she taught until her death.