Author’s Night: Rights Come to Mind: Brain Injury, Ethics, and the Struggle for Consciousness

Through the sobering story of Maggie Worthen, and her mother, Nancy, this book tells of one family's struggle with severe brain injury and how developments in neuroscience call for a reconsideration of what society owes patients at the edge of consciousness. Drawing upon over fifty in-depth family interviews, the history of severe brain injury from Quinlan to Schiavo, and his participation in landmark clinical trials, such as the first use of deep brain stimulation in the minimally conscious state, Joseph J. Fins captures the paradox of medical and societal neglect even as advances in neuroscience suggest new ways to mend the broken brain. Responding to the dire care provided to these marginalized patients, after heroically being saved, Fins places society's obligations to patients with severe injury within the historical legacy of the civil and disability rights movements, offering a stirring synthesis of public policy and physician advocacy. Fins also examines policy challenges related to the care of patients with brain injury, especially in light of health care reform and the Affordable Care Act.

Joseph J. Fins, MD, MACP, is The E. William Davis, Jr. M.D. Professor of Medical Ethics and Chief of the Division of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College where he is a Tenured Professor of Medicine, Professor of Medical Ethics in Neurology, Professor of Health Care Policy and Research, and Professor of Medicine in Psychiatry. He the founding Chair of the Ethics Committee of New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center where he is an Attending Physician and the 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 and Rockefeller. At Yale Law School, he is the Solomon Center Distinguished Scholar in Medicine, Bioethics and the Law. He is a past president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities and former Governor of the American College of Physicians. Dr. Fins is a Member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, an elected Member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an Academico de Honor (Honored Academic) of the Real Academia Nacional de Medicina de España (the Royal Academy of Medicine of Spain).