Katherine Taylor, JD, PhD
Katherine Taylor is a lawyer and bioethicist who teaches health care ethics at Drexel University’s College of Nursing and Health Professions. Dr. Taylor is also a long-time member, and now co-chair, of the Biomedical Ethics Committee at Penn Medicine – Princeton Hospital, where she chairs the policy subcommittee, and actively participates in ethics consultations, hospital Grand Rounds, staff education, and policy formulation.
Dr. Taylor is a Board Member of the Goals of Care Coalition of New Jersey, a group dedicated to improving end of life conversations between health care providers and patients, and to encouraging end of life planning through advance directives and POLST.
Dr. Taylor is from Texas, and practiced health care law in Houston and in Washington, DC for eight years before beginning graduate work in bioethics. As a lawyer in Houston, she advised hospitals and mental health facilities on a wide variety of issues, including hospital licensure and accreditation standards, medical staff peer review, medical staff, and hospital bylaws, informed consent, and termination of medical treatment. She also represented hospitals, nurses, and physicians in medical malpractice lawsuits.
In Washington, DC, Dr. Taylor counseled diverse clients on a broad spectrum of health policy matters, including regulatory and legislative strategies related to product development and approval, and monitoring federal health care reform efforts. She represented clients on Capitol Hill and before various agencies such as the FDA and HCFA, with special emphasis on cancer and immunization issues.
Dr. Taylor returned to school to study bioethics at Georgetown University. During graduate school, she served as a research analyst on the staff of President Clinton’s Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. After receiving her Ph.D. in philosophy/bioethics, Dr. Taylor was an associate and lecturer at the Master of Bioethics program at the former Center for Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
Dr. Taylor received her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas at Austin.