HealthLawProf Blog

Physicians Who Disseminate Medical Misinformation: Testing the Constitutional Limits of Professional Disciplinary Action

Carl H. Coleman (Seton Hall), Physicians Who Disseminate Medical Misinformation: Testing the Constitutional Limits of Professional Disciplinary Action, First Amend. L. Rev. (forthcoming):

There have been increasing calls in the medical community for revoking the licenses of physicians who disseminate medical misinformation, such as false claims about the safety of vaccines or the effectiveness of nonpharmaceutical measures to prevent COVID-19. While no licensing board has yet imposed penalties on physicians for disseminating medical misinformation, there is evidence that boards are using the threat of disciplinary action to exert pressure on physicians who make public statements that conflict with professional standards of care. This Essay argues that, in most cases, imposing disciplinary penalties on physicians for speech that takes place outside a physician-patient relationship would have dangerous policy implications and would almost certainly be unconstitutional. However, drawing on examples from the regulation of the legal profession, it argues that disciplinary actions would be appropriate under one set of circumstances: if a board can establish that a physician has disseminated information that she knows to be false or with reckless disregard as to whether it is true—i.e., with the “actual malice” standard applied to defamation cases brought by public officials and public figures. The Essay considers the implications of this standard for different factual scenarios.

We Shouldn't Need Roe

Carliss Chatman (Washington and Lee University), We Shouldn't Need Roe, UCLA Women’s L. J. (2022):

In the face of state-by-state attacks on the right to choose, which result in regular challenges to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court, this essay asks whether Roe is needed at all. Building on prior works that challenge the premise of fetal personhood and highlighting the status of Roe-based rights after decades of challenges, this essay proposes an alternative solution to Roe. Decades of state law encroachments cause Roe to fail to properly protect the right to choose. Federal legislative and executive efforts, including the Women’s Health Protection Act, are necessary to ensure the constitutionally guaranteed right to choose remains accessible to all pregnant persons.

Promises, Promises! Physicians Contractual Liability To Patients For Unfavorable Treatment Results--Revisited

Marc Ginsberg (UIC), Promises, Promises! Physicians Contractual Liability To Patients For Unfavorable Treatment Results—Revisited, SSRN (2022):

This paper explores whether physicians have learned the valuable lesson that promising treatment results or ailment cures may lead to liability in contract. The paper focuses on recent decisions (from year 2000-date). After examining these recent decisions, the paper also addresses medical education and recommends that physicians in training receive education on this topic.

Risk-Benefit Analysis

Carl H. Coleman (Seton Hall Law School), Risk-Benefit Analysis, Seton Hall Pub. L. Research Paper (forthcoming):

This chapter explores the concept of risk-benefit analysis in health research regulation, as well as ethical and practical questions raised by identifying, quantifying, and weighing risks and benefits. It argues that the pursuit of objectivity in risk-benefit analysis is ultimately futile, as the very concepts of risk and benefit depend on attitudes and preferences about which reasonable people disagree. Building on the work of previous authors, the discussion draws on contemporary examples to show how entities reviewing proposed research can improve the process of risk-benefit assessment by incorporating diverse perspectives into their decision-making and engaging in a systematic analytical approach.

Aging with a Plan: How a Little Thought Today Can Vastly Improve Your Tomorrow

Sharona Hoffman (Case Western Reserve University), Aging with a Plan: How a Little Thought Today Can Vastly Improve Your Tomorrow, Second Edition (First Hill Books 2022):

The book is a concise and comprehensive resource for people who are middle-aged and beyond and are facing the prospects of their own aging and of caring for  elderly relatives―an often overwhelming task for which little in life prepares us. Using an interdisciplinary approach and many personal anecdotes, Professor  Hoffman develops recommendations for building sustainable social, legal, medical, and financial support systems for aging and caregiving. Aging with a Plan  combines thorough research with engaging anecdotes and practical advice. It offers one-stop shopping for anyone in need of guidance without a lot of time for independent research. The book answers questions such as: What legal documents should you be sure to have? What expenses should you anticipate in retirement and how do you save for them? What do you need to know about medical care as you or your loved ones grow older? How should you approach conversations about the sensitive topic of safe driving with elderly loved ones? What options exist for end-of-life care, and how do you make sure that your wishes will be followed? The book is user-friendly and accessible to a general audience, and each chapter ends with a helpful checklist.

Webinar Hosted by the Law-Med Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law - New Commitment Pathway for Offenders with Serious Mental illness: Expedited Diversion to Court-Ordered Treatment (EDCOT); March 30, 2022 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern.

Webinar Hosted by the Law-Med Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law -  New Commitment Pathway for Offenders with Serious Mental illness: Expedited Diversion to Court-Ordered Treatment (EDCOT); March 30, 2022 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern.

Over the last 50 years, as public hospital beds have diminished without offsetting increases in community services and supports, individuals with mental disorders have increasingly been arrested, jailed and punished.  In many states, defendants thought to incompetent to stand trial wait months for assessment or treatment, only to eventually have their cases dismissed. About a quarter of arrestees have serious disorders and it has been estimated that more than 800,000 individuals with mental illness are under correctional control at any given time. “Decriminalizing mental illness” has become a standard plank in progressive proposals for overhaul of the “criminal legal system.”

Professor Richard J. Bonnie will present and defend “Expedited Diversion to Court-Ordered Treatment” (EDCOT), a formal statutory diversion process for offenders with serious mental illness. As a civil commitment proceeding accompanied by dismissal of criminal charges, EDCOT would not entail a waiver of criminal trial rights and could be invoked even if the defendant lacks trial competence. EDCOT would also be available to authorize civil hospitalization of offenders who are not immediately able to function successfully in the community. These provisions, coupled with mandated compliance with outpatient treatment and judicial supervision, would enable diversion of many, perhaps most, offenders with serious mental disorders into a treatment system that could provide acute services, discharge planning, and problem-solving management in the community.

Our Presenter:

Richard J. Bonnie Harrison Foundation Professor of Medicine and Law University of Virginia School of Law

Bonnie is Harrison Foundation Professor of Medicine and Law and director of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. He has co-authored leading textbooks on criminal law and public health law and has devoted special attention during his career to public policies relating to mental health and substance abuse. His first book, “The Marijuana Conviction: A History of Marijuana Prohibition in the United States” (1974) was republished in 1999 as a “drug policy classic.”

Bonnie has been involved in public service throughout his career.  Among other positions, he has been associate director of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse (1971‑73) and secretary of the first National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse (1976–80). He recently chaired a Commission on Mental Health Law Reform at the request of the chief justice of Virginia (2006–11) and is currently chairing an Expert Advisory Panel on Mental Health Reform for the Virginia General Assembly.

Bonnie was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 1991 and has chaired more than a dozen studies for the National Academies on subjects ranging from elder mistreatment to underage drinking, including the landmark report, “Ending the Tobacco Problem: A Blueprint for the Nation” (2007). In 2017, he chaired a study on policies needed to address the opioid epidemic in the United States and is now chairing a study on using knowledge about adolescent development to advance the well-being of all adolescents regardless of social background.

Bonnie has ­served as an adviser to the American Psychiatric Association (APA) since 1979, received the APA’s Isaac Ray Award in 1998 for contributions to forensic psychiatry and special presidential commendations in 2003 and 2016 for service to American psychiatry. He has also served on three MacArthur Foundation research networks, including, most recently, Law and Neuroscience. He is also a consultant to the American Academy of Neurology’s Committee on Ethics, Law and Humanities.

Bonnie received the University of Virginia’s highest honor, the Thomas Jefferson Award, in 2007.

Register now for the March 30 webinar.

 

 

Conference Hosted by the Law-Med Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law - Restoring Medical Professionalism: Physicians as Advocates for Their Patients; March 25-26 at 8:00 a.m. Eastern.

Conference Hosted by the Law-Med Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law - Restoring Medical Professionalism: Physicians as Advocates for Their Patients; March 25-26 at 8:00 a.m. Eastern. The Law-Medicine Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law is hosting an interdisciplinary conference titled “Restoring Medical Professionalism: Physicians as Advocates for Their Patients,” which will explore ways in which physicians can be supported when they advocate for their patients’ welfare. The event will be held on Friday, March 25, and Saturday morning, March 26, 2022. The ability of physicians to advocate for their patients is an essential aspect of their professionalism, and critical for patient trust and well-being. Modern medicine recognized this by stating at the outset of the first modern code of medical ethics that patient welfare depended on physicians’ “skill, attention, and fidelity,” and the law accordingly regards physicians as fiduciaries for their patients. Yet pressures on physicians from employers and others have limited physicians’ ability to fulfill this vital obligation. One response might be to punish physicians who succumb to these pressures, but a better solution would be to support physicians who resist them. The March conference therefore will explore ways to strengthen physicians’ ability to advocate for their patients. Many people think it is too late, that physicians have irretrievably lost this crucial aspect of professionalism, but for the sake of patients and the profession, this conference hopes that this is not the case. The conference will be open to the public, webcast, and videotaped for later viewing. It will begin with proposals from invited experts, followed by discussion with the presenters, other experts, and the general audience. Following the conference, a report and recommendations will be published in the Case Western Reserve University health law journal, Health Matrix, and publicly disseminated Schedule of Events Friday, March 25 8 a.m.–8:45 a.m.  Continental Breakfast 9 a.m.–9:40 a.m.  Welcome & Introduction Max Mehlman, Professor, Case Western Reserve University School of Law & Co-Director, Law-Medicine Center 9:40 a.m.–10:20 a.m. American Medicine: On the Square Robert Bitonte, MD, JD, American Academy of Legal Medicine Moderator: Professor Max Mehlman, Case Western Reserve University School of Law 10:20 a.m.–10:35 a.m. Break 10:35 a.m.–11:15 a.m. MICRA: The History and the Current Challenge Sarah Scher, JD, RN, Chief Executive Officer, Cooperative American Physicians Moderator: Professor Max Mehlman, Case Western Reserve University School of Law 11:15 a.m.–11:55 a.m. The Growing Role of Private Equity in Health Services Mark Hall, J.D., Professor of Law and Public Health, Wake Forest University Moderator: Professor Max Mehlman, Case Western Reserve University School of Law 11:55 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Lunch 12:30 p.m.–1:10 p.m. Physician Unionization Stuart Bussey, MD, JD, President, Union of American Physicians and Dentists Robert Bitonte, MD, JD, American Academy of Legal Medicine Moderator: Professor Max Mehlman, Case Western Reserve University School of Law 1:10 p.m.–1:50 p.m. Beyond Morals of the Marketplace: Lawyers as Fiduciaries Milan Markovic, JD, MA, Professor, Presidential Impact Fellow, and a Co-Convener of the Program in law and Social Science at Texas A&M University School of Law Moderator: Professor Max Mehlman, Case Western Reserve University School of Law 1:50 p.m.–2:30 p.m. Strengthening Legal Protections for Physicians Who Advocate for their Patients Max Mehlman, J.D., Professor, Co-Director Law Medicine Center, Case Western Reserve University School of Law 2:30 p.m.–2:45 p.m. Break 2:45 p.m.–3:25 p.m. Health Advocacy Organization: The Medical Student Perspective  Panel of Law and Medical Students, Case Western Reserve University Moderator: Professor Max Mehlman, Case Western Reserve University School of Law 3:25 p.m.–5:30 p.m. Discussion: Additional Steps to Support Physician Advocacy Robert Bitonte, MD, JD, American Academy of Legal Medicine Max Mehlman, JD, Professor, Co-Director Law Medicine Center, Case Western Reserve University School of Law Saturday, March 26 8–8:45 a.m. Continental Breakfast 9–10:45 a.m. Identifying Promising Directions for the Future Robert Bitonte, MD, JD, American Academy of Legal Medicine Max Mehlman, JD, Professor, Co-Director Law Medicine Center, Case Western Reserve University School of Law 10:45 a.m.–11 a.m. Break 11 a.m.–Noon Identifying Promising Directions for the Future (Continued) Robert Bitonte, MD, JD, American Academy of Legal Medicine Max Mehlman, JD, Professor, Co-Director Law Medicine Center, Case Western Reserve University School of Law Noon–12:45 p.m. Effectuating Positive Change Robert Bitonte, MD, JD, American Academy of Legal Medicine Max Mehlman, JD, Professor, Co-Director Law Medicine Center, Case Western Reserve University School of Law 12:45 p.m.–1 p.m. Closing Remarks Register to attend the March 25-26 conference in person. Register to attend the March 25-26 conference virtually.

 

Webinar Hosted by the Law-Med Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law - Teaching Public Health Law and Inequity; March 23, 2022 at 12 p.m. EST.

Webinar Hosted by the Law-Med Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law - Teaching Public Health Law and Inequity; March 23, 2022 at 12 p.m. EST.

Those who teach public health law are acutely aware of the effect of public health law and policies on marginalized populations—including, but not limited to, those in the Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) community. In some cases, public health officials have created or exacerbated the problem through laws and policies that disproportionately affect these communities— sometimes, even deliberately.

This emerging attention to these important problems has now led to the development of a new course, "Public Health Law and Inequality." The course is being co-taught by the two presenters, who will describe the basic outline of the course and offer some examples of how the topics are interwoven throughout the semester, and how the students have become deeply involved in the course, through regular reflection papers, class discussion, and presentations.

Our Presenters:

John Culhane Professor of Law, Widener University	Joseph Farris Dean of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Widener University

John Culhane is the H. Albert Young Fellow in Constitutional Law, professor of law, and co-director of the Family Health Law & Policy Institute at Delaware Law School (Widener University) and visiting professor of law at the Beasley Law School, Temple University. He teaches in the areas of Constitutional Law, Public Health Law, Torts and Family Law. Author of more than 40 law journal articles, he is also a regular contributor to Slate and Politico. His latest book, "The Many Ties that Bind," will be published in 2023 by the University of California Press. He has written two electronic casebooks: "Culhane Torts I and II"; and "Kelly/Culhane Family Law" (with Alicia Kelly) for ChartaCourse, and has also created "Torts Study Guide" for the same publisher.This emerging attention to these important problems has now led to the development of a new course, "Public Health Law and Inequality." The course is being co-taught by the two presenters, who will describe the basic outline of the course and offer some examples of how the topics are interwoven throughout the semester, and how the students have become deeply involved in the course, through regular reflection papers, class discussion, and presentations.

John's work has also appeared in The New York Times, Huffington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer and Dissent, among many other places. He has been featured and interviewed in media including the NPR shows Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Marketplace Morning Report, as well as MSNBC, Radio Times, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Reuters, and Associated Press. He has thrice won the Outstanding Faculty Award from Delaware Law School.

Joseph Farris is the assistant dean of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and adjunct faculty at Delaware Law School (Widener University), where he graduated Magna Cum Laude and was awarded the Dean’s Award and the President’s Award. He received his BSE in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, then served as an Officer in the United States Navy. Joseph has significant diversity leadership experience working on diverse and multicultural teams spanning from his roles in the military, church and nonprofit organizations to legal and business teams. Through DEI-related programming and messaging and a passionate commitment to social justice and the advancement of DEI interests and issues, he is helping the law school and broader legal community become more adept at recognizing and responding to DEI-related interests and issues, resulting in greater awareness and action towards creating a more inclusive and equitable environment.

Joseph teaches legal problem-solving and this semester is co-teaching Public Health Law and Inequality with John Culhane. Joseph is a licensed attorney in the state of Delaware and prior to joining the law school administration, he practiced law in the areas of corporate transactions, intellectual property, bankruptcy and restructuring matters. He has published works in those areas. In November 2021, he moderated a panel for the New Castle County Chamber of Commerce Women’s Leadership Conference about equity in the workplace; and in September 2021, he was a panelist in the National Association of African American Human Resources (Delaware chapter) event on the topic of justice in the workplace.

Register now for the March 23 webinar.

Penalizing Prevention

Doron Dorfman (Syracuse University), Penalizing Prevention, 108 Cornell L. Rev. 3 (2023):

Preventive medicine, which includes interventions intended to preempt illnesses before they surface, has long been a priority for furthering public health goals and improving quality of care. Yet, preventive medicine also sends strong signals about the possible risks associated with the users’ behavior and character. This signaling effect intersects with existing stigma and pervades law and policy. Thus, the law endorses and encourages prevention on one hand and penalizes it on the other creating the paradoxical legal treatment of preventive medicine. A spectrum of penalties is assigned to those using preventive medicine including, for example, insurance discrimination, exclusion from civic practices or the legal profession, and stigmatization. Laws, policies, and court decisions that penalize users deter them from using life-saving preventive health measures, hindering the promise of preventive medicine. This Article introduces an original typology and conducts three in-depth case studies on the regulation of the HIV prophylactic drug, PrEP, mental health treatment, and the public use of the opioid blocker Naloxone to demonstrate how the law penalizes prevention. It then calls for harmonizing the legal regulation of preventive medicine to allow for its important goals to come to fruition.

NDIS Green Paper No. 6: Cost Differentials, Cost Pressures & Labour Competition Impacting Western Australian Disability Service Delivery

David Gilchrist (The University of Western Australia), NDIS Green Paper No. 6: Cost Differentials, Cost Pressures & Labour Competition Impacting Western Australian Disability Service Delivery, SSRN (2021):

The Not-for-profits UWA Research Team analysed data from published sources and volunteered data contributions provide by disability service providers to identify and examine key NDIS delivery cost differentials and cost pressures likely to exist between Western Australia and the other jurisdictions in Australia. It also gained access to data provided by a small number of disability service providers operating in Western Australia to find:

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Did the Opioid Crisis Dampen Post-Recession Employment Recovery? Evidence from Labor Market Flows

Anita Mukherjee (Wisconsin School of Business), Daniel W. Sacks (Indiana University), Hoyoung Yoo (University of Wisconsin), Did the Opioid Crisis Dampen Post-Recession Employment Recovery? Evidence from Labor Market Flows, SSRN (2021):

We show that the opioid crisis slows transitions to employment from unemployment and non-participation, implying slower recovery from recessions. We identify the effect of the opioid crisis from cross-state variation in triplicate prescribing regulations, which produced long-lasting reductions in opioid use by reducing the initial distribution of the blockbuster opioid OxyContin. Difference-in-differences estimates show that triplicate regulations induce unemployed and non-participating workers in triplicate states to return to employment about 10 percent faster than workers in non-triplicate states. These estimates imply a 1.1 percentage point higher level of employment in steady state, and faster recovery from negative employment shocks. The protective effects of triplicate regulation appear across demographic groups, with larger effects for those working in physically demanding occupations.

Mobile Apps for COVID-19 Surveillance: Balancing Public Health Needs with the Privacy of Personal Data

Abba Elgujja (King Saud University), Augustine Arimoro (University of Roehampton), Fatimah Saad Alshahrani (King Saud University), Mazin Barry (King Saud University), Ahmed Hersi (King Saud University), Aisha A. Elgujja (State Specialist Hospital), Salah Ezreqat (King Saud University), Mobile Apps for COVID-19 Surveillance: Balancing Public Health Needs with the Privacy of Personal Data, SSRN (2021):

Privacy of personal information is a protected human right both under the international human rights and national laws, statutes and regulations, subject to so exceptions that include protecting public health. The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged and overwhelmed the status quo in every human sphere, including the conventional surveillance of infectious diseases, contact tracing, isolation, reporting and vaccination while simultaneously protecting the privacy of personal data.

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Anti-Subordination Torts

Scott Skinner-Thompson (University of Colorado), Subordination Torts, 83 Oh. St. L. J. (2022):

In law school curriculum, the first-year tort law course is often caricatured as the class with the funky, sometimes amusing, fact patterns where people get injured—occasionally in bizarre ways—and attempt to recover from the party purportedly responsible. In legal scholarship, tort law has historically been dominated by two approaches: the law and economic approach focused on efficiently distributing the costs of injuries and on preventing/deterring them, and the civil recourse or corrective justice approach that underscores tort law’s role in providing individual redress for victims who have been injured by a wrongdoer.

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Organisational and Advance Care Planning Program Characteristics Associated with Advance Care Directive Completion: A Prospective Multicentre Cross-sectional Audit among Health and Residential Aged Care Services Caring for Older Australians

Karen Detering (Austin Health), Craig Sinclair (University of New South Wales), Kim Buck (Independent), Marcus Sellars (Independent), Ben White (Queensland University of Technology), Helana Kelly (affiliation not provided), Linda Nolte (Austin Health), Organisational and Advance Care Planning Program Characteristics Associated with Advance Care Directive Completion: A Prospective Multicentre Cross-sectional Audit among Health and Residential Aged Care Services Caring for Older Australians, 21 BMC Health Services Research 700 (2021):

Background: Advance care planning (ACP) and advance care directive (ACD) completion improve outcomes for patients, family, clinicians and the healthcare system. However, uptake remains low. Despite increasing literature regarding organisational-level ACP characteristics leading to success, there is a lack of data measuring the impact of
these factors on ACD prevalence.

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Medical Harm Without Negligence

Valerie Gutmann Koch (University of Chicago), Medical Harm Without Negligence, 91 Fordham L. Rev. (2022):

In December 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported that seven women from one family underwent highly invasive surgeries, based on genetic test results that indicated that they each had an 84 percent chance of developing cancer by age 70. Subsequently, after procedures that (among other things) permanently scarred and disfigured their bodies and ended their chances of having biological children, they learned that their particular mutation was not, in fact, pathogenic.

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Arbitrary Property Interference During a Global Pandemic and Beyond

Brett Raffish (Harvard Law School), Arbitrary Property Interference During a Global Pandemic and Beyond, 19 Harv. J. L. Pub. Pol’y 1 (2022):

To stymie COVID-19’s spread, state and local governments imposed sweeping and burdensome lockdown measures that crushed American businesses and interfered with private property. Despite interfering with many Americans’ property rights, state and local governments have consistently prevailed on pandemic-related regulatory takings claims in federal court. By forcing governments to pay for deprivations, the Takings Clause can thwart arbitrary interference with private property. However, the dispensation of regulatory takings claims arising out of pandemic-related regulations suggests that the Takings Clause may presently fail to adequately thwart arbitrary property interference in the partial regulatory takings context when the government claims that it is acting in the name of public health or safety.

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Going Global, Acting Local: How an International Pandemic Convention Can Support Regional and Community Response

Kevin A. Klock (Georgetown University), Lawrence O. Gostin (Georgetown University), Sam Halabi (University of Missouri), Going Global, Acting Local: How an International Pandemic Convention Can Support Regional and Community Response, Africa Health (Nov. 25, 2021):

A WHO pandemic convention could set in place an overarching framework needed for strengthening global health security. As the World Health Assembly (WHA) debated the merits of such an agreement, a critically important regional instrument – the Treaty for the Establishment of the African Medicines Agency (AMA Treaty) – entered into force on 5 November 2021. The new agency will, among other things, ensure there is a “common framework” for addressing “emerging issues and pandemics in the event of a public health emergency on the continent with cross border or regional implications.”

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Experience of Foreign Legislative Regulation of Criminal Liability for Euthanasia

Vera Alizade (MGIMO University), Experience of Foreign Legislative Regulation of Criminal Liability for Euthanasia, Materials on the XIII Int’l Sci. Prac. Internet Conf. (Feb. 26, 2021):

Termination of the life of a person suffering from an incurable disease, so called euthanasia, is a very difficult moral and ethical problem and legal problem. Currently there are two main types of euthanasia: passive and active. Passive euthanasia is accompanied by the termination of maintenance therapy necessary for the dying person, whereas active euthanasia is the administration of medications to a dying person or other actions, that lead to his quick and painless death. Assisted suicide is also considered to be an active euthanasia (providing the patient with appropriate medications).

Call for Papers by the Center for Health Law Studies and the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics - Health Law Scholars Workshop; Abstracts due April 13.

Call for Papers by the Center for Health Law Studies and the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics - Health Law Scholars Workshop; Abstracts due April 13.

The Health Law Scholars Workshop is a collegial forum in which faculty new to health law and bioethics scholarship present works-in-progress and receive in-depth advice from experienced scholars and teachers in the field. The workshop encourages health and bioethics scholarship, fosters the professional development of emerging scholars, and furthers the sense of community among health law academics. Past scholars have placed their papers for publication in preeminent law journals.

Scholars workshop their works-in-progress before a group of experienced peer reviewers and commentators. Each author’s work-in-progress accepted for the Health Law Scholars Workshop will be read in advance by several faculty members in relevant fields. During the workshop weekend, each author presents their paper to the entire group. After extensive oral feedback from the readers, the floor is opened for a sustained exchange between the presenter and the full group.

The workshop draws health law and bioethics scholars from across the country, inviting senior faculty from a variety of law schools and disciplines to review the works-in-progress and participate in the weekend. The workshop also draws on the expertise of faculty from the Saint Louis University Center for Health Law Studies, School of Medicine, College for Public Health and Social Justice, Trudy Busch Valentine School of Nursing, and Albert Gnaegi Center for Health Care Ethics.

Call for Papers

A nominating committee selects the papers to be presented at the workshop. The committee looks for papers with an original thesis that will contribute to the scholarly literature. The workshop is designed primarily to provide feedback on articles intended for spring submission to law review journals. The workshop is not intended to review published work or papers already accepted for publication.  

The workshop is designed for those new to law journal scholarship as they navigate the challenges of the promotion and tenure process. While the workshop welcomes abstracts from fellows, visiting professors, and post-docs, the nominating committee gives priority to authors in tenure track and long-term contract positions at the pre-tenure and pre-full professor levels. An important goal of this workshop is to connect those new to academia with mid-level and senior scholars who can provide valuable mentoring. We also seek to promote an inclusive and equitable environment in the workshop and within the academy.  

Those interested in presenting a health law or bioethics work-in-progress at the Health Law Scholars Workshop should submit a 500-word abstract to Amy Sanders at Saint Louis University School of Law by April 13, 2022. Because a blind selection process is used, please do not include the author’s name, institutional affiliation, or other identifying information in the abstract. 

Please send questions about the submission process to Professor Sidney D. Watson at [email protected] or 314-807-4792.

Submit by mail or e-mail to: 
Amy Sanders, Associate Director 
Center for Health Law Studies 
Saint Louis University School of Law 
100 N. Tucker Blvd. 
St. Louis, MO 63101 
314-977-8176 
[email protected] 

Symposium Hosted by Georgia State University College of Law - PFAS Dangers, Requirements, and Strategies (PFAS); March 29, 2022 at 8:30 a.m. Eastern.

Symposium Hosted by Georgia State University College of Law - PFAS Dangers, Requirements, and Strategies (PFAS); March 29, 2022 at 8:30 a.m. Eastern.

As journalists, regulators, and litigants across the country turn their attention to perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), it is crucial for lawyers, environmental consultants, and business owners to educate themselves about these ubiquitous emerging contaminants.

Register now for a symposium on PFAS Dangers, Requirements, and Strategies, from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 29 at Georgia State University College of Law. A virtual attendance option is also available through Webex.

Please join us for this one-day symposium as we explore PFAS:

• Science and public health impacts;
• Business and technical impacts;
• Regulatory requirements;
• Litigation, including the ongoing AFFF lawsuits; and
• How you can stay ahead of the curve

View event schedule

The symposium will be followed by a reception sponsored by KMCL from 3:45 to 5:30 p.m.

By George at the Candler Hotel Atlanta
127 Peachtree Street NE
Atlanta, Georgia 30303

Cost:  Registration fee is $150. A reduced rate of $100 is offered for attendees from government, academic, or non-profit. This event is free for GSU students and GSU faculty.

Space is limited for in-person attendance and early registration is encouraged. In-person attendees are encouraged to wear a mask.

Continuing legal education (CLE) credit will be requested from the State Bar of Georgia's Commission on Continuing Lawyer Competency.

For questions, please contact Karen Johnston, Associate Director of the Center
for the Comparative Study of Metropolitan Growth, at [email protected].

Register now for the March 29 symposium.