Leigh Turner is Associate Professor in the Center for Bioethics and School of Public Health. Before joining the University of Minnesota faculty in July 2008 Turner was Associate Professor and William Dawson Scholar in the Biomedical Ethics Unit at McGill University. From 1998-2000 Turner was Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics and clinical ethicist at Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care and Sunnybrook & Women’s College Health Sciences Centre. From 1996-1997 Turner was Research Associate at The Hastings Center. In 1996 Turner received his PhD from the School of Religion & Social Ethics at the University of Southern California.
Turner has held visiting appointments at several institutions. In 2006-2007 Turner was Distinguished Visiting Fellow in the Comparative Program on Health and Society, Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto. From 2003 to 2004 Turner was a Member of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. In 1999 Turner was Visiting Scholar at the Institute for the Medical Humanities, University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas.
With Raymond De Vries, Kristina Orfali, and Charles Bosk, Turner edited The View from Here: Bioethics and the Social Sciences. The book was published by Blackwell in 2007. His articles have appeared in such publications as BioSocieties, British Medical Journal, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, and Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics. He has also contributed to The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Ottawa Citizen, Jerusalem Post, and Chronicle of Higher Education.
Turner’s current research examines ethical issues related to the emergence of a global marketplace in health care. His research program includes ethical and social analysis of cross-border commercial organ transplantation, "medical tourism", offshore cosmetic surgery clinics, "stem cell tourism", "reproductive tourism", "dental tourism", international teleradiology, the establishment of regional bioeconomies in East Asia, cross-border shopping for medications, global migration of health care providers, and global trade in health services. Many of these topics are explored in Turner’s graduate seminar, Ethical Issues in Global Health.