Brian Spoelhof is a pharmacy leader and bioethicist whose work explores how medication decisions shape patients’ lives. At the University of Virginia, he manages the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee, pharmacy policy, and the Drug Shortage Task Force. Drawing on experience in critical care, pharmacy leadership, and bioethics, he helps clinicians and institutions navigate questions of access, fairness, and responsibility in medication use.
His interest in these questions began long before his pharmacy career. Born and raised in Rochester, New York, Brian spent his formative years helping care for family members with disabling conditions. A familiar saying in his family—“There are some things worse than death”—opened conversations about mortality, the limits of treatment, and what makes life meaningful. Those experiences taught him that good care requires understanding what matters to the person receiving it.
Brian earned his Doctor of Pharmacy from Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, then completed a PGY1 Pharmacy Practice Residency at Indiana University Health and a PGY2 Critical Care Pharmacy Residency at Memorial Hermann–Texas Medical Center. He began his clinical career as a Neurocritical Care Clinical Pharmacy Specialist at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, caring for patients with many of the same conditions he had encountered within his own family, including severe strokes and complex seizure disorders.
Early in his clinical practice, Brian was appointed chair of the Drug Shortage Taskforce. The role brought another dimension of patient care into focus: what happens when the treatment a patient needs is unavailable? It began a lasting commitment to understanding both the practical challenges of drug shortages and the ethical responsibilities they create. He later led the Internal Medicine pharmacy team at Boston Medical Center, where caring for marginalized patient populations deepened his understanding of how inequities shape health and access to treatment.
A shortage of vincristine, an essential chemotherapy used to treat childhood cancers, became a turning point. Facing the prospect of withholding critical treatment, Brian worked with ethics colleagues to navigate decisions that clinical evidence alone could not resolve. That experience inspired him to pursue a Master of Bioethics at Harvard Medical School, where he focused on the ethics of drug-shortage allocation and pharmaceutical supply-chain practices.
Today, Brian brings these experiences to his work in pharmacy leadership, education, and public dialogue. He is board-certified in Pharmacotherapy and Critical Care Pharmacy and frequently speaks about the ethics of drug shortages, including through national broadcasts and podcasts.
Brian created PharmDEthics as a resource and community for pharmacy professionals seeking to deepen their knowledge of bioethics and for anyone interested in the distinctive ethical questions of pharmacy practice. Through shared learning, thoughtful discussion, and connection, he hopes to help people bring ethical reasoning into everyday decisions and develop their own voices at the intersection of pharmacy and ethics. PharmDEthics reflects his belief that pharmacy professionals have an essential role in shaping the ethical foundations of medication use—and that this work grows stronger when people learn from one another.