At Duke, he was chairman of the symposium committee for STEP (Science, Technology, Ethics and Policy) '82 and received the President's Leadership Award.
[5] During his fellowship he also completed an MPH at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health (1992) and an MA in applied ethics at Georgetown University (1993).
While in medical school, Sugarman noticed there was a linguistic divide between patients and doctors which led to miscommunication and misinformation so he began working with English professor Ronald R. Butters on this subject.
[8] In 2003, Sugarman was recruited by Michael Klag and Ruth Faden to join the faculty at Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics.
[9] After his appointment at JHU, in 2004 Sugarman was installed in an Endowed Professorship in Bioethics and Medicine position that was supported by Harvey M. Meyerhoff.