Dr. Joseph J. Fins ’82, an internationally renowned medical ethicist and pioneer in the field of neuroethics and disorders of consciousness, was named the first recipient of a newly established professorship, The E. William Davis Jr. M.D., Professor of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Davis is a member of the Wesleyan Class of 1947. Fins serves as chief of the Division of Medical Ethics and is a tenured professor of medicine, professor of public health, and professor of medicine in psychiatry. He is also director of medical ethics and a physician at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center and on the adjunct faculty of Rockefeller University. He is a co-author of the 2007 Nature paper describing the first use of deep brain stimulation in the minimally conscious state. The Davis Professorship was created in honor of Dr. E. William Davis Jr., who was instrumental in the founding of New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell’s Ethics Committee in 1994, when Dr. Fins was named as its founding chair. Dr. Davis served as professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Weill Cornell Medical College and is currently vice president for medical affairs emeritus at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.
