Joseph J. Fins

Weill Cornell Medical College, New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center, the Rockefeller University (New York, New York) and Yale Law School (New Haven, CT)~The E. William Davis, Jr. M.D. Professor of Medical Ethics; Chief, Division of Medical Ethics; Tenured Professor of Medicine; Professor of Medical Ethics in Neurology; Professor of Medicine in Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. Director of Medical Ethics, New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center. Adjunct Faculty,  Rockefeller University and Senior Attending Physician at The Rockefeller University Hospital. Co-Director, Consortium for the Advanced Study of Brain Injury (CASBI) at Weill Cornell and Rockefeller.  Senior Research Scholar and Solomon Center Distinguished Scholar in Medicine, Bioethics and the Law at Yale Law School 

Focuses on medical ethics' enduring, perplexing, and very human problems. Physician and medical ethicist who has worked to improve end-of-life care through scholarly and public policy work and pioneer in the development of neuroethics. Developed clinical pragmatism; current scholarly interests include ethical and policy issues in brain injury and disorders of consciousness, palliative care, research ethics in neurology and psychiatry, medical education, and methods of ethics case consultation.

The author of over 300 publications, his most recent book is Rights Come to Mind: Brain Injury, Ethics and The Struggle for Consciousness (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Dr. Fins is also the author of A Palliative Ethic of Care: Clinical Wisdom at Life’s End (Jones and Bartlett, 2006) and a co-author of the 2007 Nature paper describing the first use of deep brain stimulation in the minimally conscious state. 

A Past President of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, he is a member of Board of Trustees of The Hastings Center and the International Neuroethics Society. He is a Master and past Governor of the American College of Physicians and served as a trustee of the American College of Physicians Foundation. He is a Trustee Emeritus of Wesleyan University.

Appointed by President Clinton to the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy and serves on the New York State Task Force on Life and Law. Member, Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and an Academico de Honor (Honored Academic) of the  Real Academia Nacional de Medicina de España (the Royal National Academy of Medicine of Spain)~~