Robert Emmons

Private Practice Physician

Robert S. Emmons, M.D. is a private psychiatrist and clinical ethics advocate who practices in Burlington, Vermont.

Robert S. Emmons, M.D, has offered individual and family psychotherapy in a private, direct-pay psychiatric practice for twenty-eight years. He gives the same treatment modalities to Medicaid beneficiaries and uninsured patients in his free clinic. Dr. Emmons also provides forensic consultation for physicians facing mandatory psychiatric evaluation as part of the disciplinary proceedings that can result from relationship conflicts in the medical workplace.

Dr. Emmons graduated with honors from the University of Iowa College of Medicine in 1985. He completed his training and served as Chief Resident in psychiatry at the University of Vermont, where he is now Part-time Clinical Associate Professor. He has trained a generation of Vermont psychiatrists in professionalism, ethics, and psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Dr. Emmons is a Director of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, and he serves on the editorial board of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

Dr. Emmons regularly presents his scholarly work on the financial conflicts of interest in medicine that are integral to third party intervention into the patient-physician relationship. His studies in medical ethics are aimed at maintaining a clinician- and patient-centered perspective in a field that is increasingly shaped by the commercial and political interests of the institutions that employ most bioethicists.  He actively consults and advocates, at the national level and in Vermont, with colleagues, legislators, and policymakers on the clinical, ethical, and financial benefits of giving primacy to patients and doctors in negotiating payment for medical services.

Dr. Emmons is a fourth generation private physician. He and his wife Susan enjoy endurance sports and choral singing.

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