Director, Ethics Consult Service

Medical Director, Pediatric Pain and Palliative Care Program
Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics, General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine
Stead Family Department of Pediatrics

200 Hawkins Drive, 2616 JCP
Iowa City, IA 52242
319-356-7823
E-mail: rebecca-benson@uiowa.edu

Dr. Benson is the Director of the Ethics Consult Service at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, where she is also the Medical Director of the Pain and Palliative Care Program and a clinical assistant professor in the Stead Family Department of Pediatrics.  She received her MD and PhD in Immunology from the University of Iowa, and stayed on to complete her residency in Pediatrics. She served as a Chief Resident before joining the Division of General and Adolescent Medicine and becoming the Medical Director for the Pediatric Pain and Palliative Care Program. She completed a Pediatric Bioethics Certificate Program at the Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, MO.  Dr. Benson currently works as a pediatric hospitalist as well as in pediatric pain and palliative care.

Dr. Benson is on the Ethics Subcommittee of the Hospital Advisory Committee and on the steering committee for Schwartz Center Rounds for Compassionate Healthcare.  She was involved in the implementation of the hospital’s Ethics Consultation Service and became the Director of the service in July of 2014, as well as serving as one of its consultants.  She is involved in ethics education at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine.

Dr. Benson is a fellow in the American Academy of Pediatrics and is a member of the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.