Valerie Satkoske serves as Vice President for Ethics for UPMC Mercy Hospital, UPMC Presbyterian University/Shadyside Hospitals, and the UPMC health system. In 2020, Dr. Satkoske returned to the University of Pittsburgh, where she previously served as the ethicist for the Clinical and Translational Science Institute. Immediately prior to her return, she served as Director of Ethics at Wheeling Hospital in Wheeling, West Virginia, and Assistant Professor of Medical Education at West Virginia University, where she helped to direct the Center for Health Ethics & Law and designed a medical ethics curriculum for WVU medical students. She continues to serve as an ethics consultant for the West Virginia Rural Emergency Trauma Institute. Dr. Satkoske’s research interests include medical decision making involving patients with cognitive difference, ethical issues in rural trauma care and in substance use disorder treatment, rural health disparities, ethical management of delirium, and end-of-life decision making. For the Center for Bioethics & Health Law, Dr. Satkoske serves on the spring conference program planning committee and the advisory group for the Healthcare and Religion Lecture Series. She is a frequent lecturer in various lecture series of the Center and its Consortium Ethics Program, of which she was briefly the Acting Director. For the MA Program in Bioethics, she serves as a thesis advisor and the clinical practicum director.
