Events/Calendar/Media

2005
Seventh Annual SIH/SIU Health Policy Institute
The Medical Malpractice Crisis: Is There a Solution? (May 20, 2005)

The Medical Malpractice Crisis: Is There a Solution?
Patient injuries sometimes occur in the course of receiving medical care. How the legal system deals with accusations that substandard medical conduct has caused harm to patients is a matter of substantial controversy among medical and legal professionals, elected policy makers, and the public. Discuss with national and local experts the key questions and arguments characterizing the ongoing quest for a legal approach that prevents and corrects instances of medical malpractice most effectively, efficiently, and fairly. Identify the important moral, economic, and political consequences relating to the quality, cost, and accessibility of medical care for citizens, both locally and nationally. Evaluate the support that exists both for perpetuating the present tort system through which medical malpractice claims now are adjudicated and for changing the system, either modestly or radically.

Program objectives
1. Identify the moral, economic, and political issues raised by the debate concerning the legal system's current response to the medical malpractice situation.
2. Evaluate proposals for changing the legal system's response to the medical malpractice situation in terms of fairness to the parties and the public.
3. Understand the virtues and weaknesses of the current American tort system in terms of its ability to effectively and efficiently accomplish its objectives in medical malpractice cases.
4. Apply to the debate about the suitability of the American tort system to deal with medical malpractice claims lessons learned from other countries' experiences in the same arena.

Marie Bismark, M.D., J.D.
Harvard School of Public Health
Presentation: No-Fault Compensation in New Zealand: Any Lessons for the United States?

Marie Bismark, M.D., J.D.
Harvard School of Public Health
An attorney and physician from New Zealand, Bismark is a 2004-2005 Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy. Her research focuses on relations between adverse events, no-fault compensation, and complaints in New Zealand public hospitals. In New Zealand, she works as a legal advisor to the Health and Disability Commissioner and serves on the New Zealand Law Society Medical Issues Committee.

Frank M. McClellan, J.D., LL.M.
Temple University
Presentation: Health Literacy and Human Dignity: Testing the Limits of the Tort System in the Midst of a Cultural War

Frank M. McClellan, J.D., LL.M.
Temple University
A professor of law at the James A. Beasley School of Law, McClellan teaches torts, bioethics, medical malpractice, and drug product liability and also lectures at university's School of Medicine. He is the author of the book Medical Malpractice: Law, Tactics and Ethics, co-author of Torts: Cases, Problems and Materials, and author of numerous law review articles. McClellan has taught comparative law courses and lectured in Ghana, Greece, Japan, and China. During the past thirty years he has litigated medical malpractice and product liability cases and served as lead trial and appellate counsel on medical malpractice and drug liability cases that have resulted in groundbreaking court decisions.

William H. Freivogel
St. Louis Dispatch
Presentation: Is “Tort Reform” Really Reform?

William H. Freivogel
St. Louis Dispatch
Deputy editorial page editor since 1997, Freivogel spent twelve of his thirty-two years at the paper's Washington Bureau where he was assistant bureau chief covering the U.S. Supreme Court. He was a finalist in the 2002 Pulitzer Prize competition for his editorials on John Ashcroft and the Constitution, won a silver gavel from the American Bar Association, and received the 1991 Sigma Delta Chi award for a series on the Bill of Rights and the Sidney Hillman award for a series on Reagan administration civil rights policy changes. A Washington University law school graduate, he is a member of the Missouri Bar.

Maxwell J. Mehlman, J.D.
Case Western Reserve University
Presentation: Malpractice Reform: Does Fairness Matter?

Maxwell J. Mehlman, J.D.
Case Western Reserve University
Mehlman is the Arthur E. Petersilge Professor of Law and director of the Law-Medicine Center at Case's School of Law and professor of biomedical ethics at the university's School of Medicine. He has practiced law in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in federal regulation of health care and medical technology. He has served on the Committee to Design a Strategy for Quality Review and Assurance in Medicare at the Institute of Medicine National Academy of Sciences and worked as special counsel to the Special Committee on Medical Malpractice of the New York State Bar.

David A. Hyman, J.D., M.D.
University of Illinois, College of Law
Presentation: Medical Malpractice: What Do We Actually Know?

David A. Hyman, J.D., M.D.
University of Illinois, College of Law
A professor of law and medicine, Hyman has taught health care regulation, civil procedure, insurance law, law and economics, professional responsibility, and tax policy. His research focuses on the regulation and financing of health care. While serving as special counsel to the Federal Trade Commission, he was principal author and project leader of the first joint report ever issued by the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice. He is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.