About the Author

John Banja is a clinical ethicist at the Center For Ethics in Public Policy and the Professions and an associate professor of rehabilitation medicine. He received a doctorate degree in philosophy from Fordham University in New York and maintains a specialty interest in moral issues associated with catastrophic neurological impairment. He teaches medical ethics at Emory and has authored or coauthored over 100 publications, including the entry "Rehabilitation Medicine" which appears in the most recent edition of the Encyclopedia of Bioethics. He has delivered over 500 invited lectures at regional, national, and international conferences and has appeared numerous times on television, radio and in the popular press. He spent the 1998-99 academic year as a Mary Switzer Distinguished Fellow with grant support from the National Institute On Disability and Rehabilitation Research where he studied the ethical dimensions of private health insurance. He is presently conducting grant funded research on the impact of insurance coverage as an outcome predictor in traumatic brain injury and on communicational strategies for health providers who encounter emotionally painful situations. He was the year 2000 recipient of the John W. Goldschmidt Award for Excellence in Rehabilitation, presented by the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington, DC.