Recent neuroimaging research reveals that many patients formerly thought to be unresponsive in coma and vegetative states are in fact conscious, raising many ethical and clinical questions. Please join us for a conversation with Dr. Fins about these fascinating and important challenges.

Join Hastings Center for Bioethics Board Chair Joseph J. Fins for this talk (register below). Dr. Fins is the E. William Davis, Jr. M.D. Professor of Medical Ethics and Chief of the Division of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medicine where he is a Tenured Professor of Medicine, Professor of Medicine in Psychiatry, Professor of Medical Ethics in Neurology, Professor of Medical Ethics in Rehabilitation Medicine, and Professor of Health Care Policy and Research. He is the founding Chair of the Ethics Committee of New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center where he is an Attending Physician and Director of Medical Ethics. A member of the Adjunct Faculty of Rockefeller University and Senior Attending Physician at The Rockefeller University Hospital, he co-directs the Consortium for the Advanced Study of Brain Injury (CASBI) at Weill Cornell Medicine and Rockefeller. He is currently a Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School in addition to his appointment at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Dr. Fins is an elected Member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) of the National Academies of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and by Royal Appointment an Academico de Honor (Honored Academic) of the Real Academia Nacional de Medicina de España (the Royal National Academy of Medicine of Spain). In 2022, he was elected to the Association of American Physicians.

Dr. Fins graduated from Wesleyan University (B.A. with Honors, The College of Letters, 1982) and Cornell University Medical College (M.D., 1986). He completed his residency in Internal Medicine and Fellowship in General Internal Medicine at The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center and has served as Associate for Medicine at The Hastings Center. He is a Diplomat of the American Board of Internal Medicine. He is author of over 500 papers, chapters, essays, and books, his most recent volume is Rights Come to Mind: Brain Injury, Ethics and The Struggle for Consciousness (Cambridge University Press, 2015).

Moderated by: Robert Klitzman, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Joseph Mailman School of Public Health and the Program Director of the Master of Science in Bioethics at Columbia University.

In Person Location:

Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Room: Amphitheater 1
630 W 168 Street, New York, NY 10032
(Between Broadway and Fort Washington Avenue)

This is a hybrid event and will be hosted both in person at Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and via Zoom. Registered guests will receive a Zoom link prior to the event. Lunch will be provided for those choosing to attend in person.

For further information, please contact Marie Gugnishev, mg4441@columbia.edu.