Health Law Opportunities at Harvard Law School

Health Law Opportunities at Harvard Law School

Friday, November 15, 2013 12:00 PM

Wasserstein Hall 3019
1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA

1Ls and 2Ls will have the opportunity to learn more about different classes and extracurricular activities available at Harvard Law School that relate to health law. Opportunities range from classes on FDA regulation, healthcare access, and food policy, to internships and research assistance. Panelists will include:

  • Robert Greenwald, Clinical Professor of Law and Director, Health Law and Policy Clinic of the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, WilmerHale Legal Services Center at Harvard Law School
  • Emily Broad Leib, Clinical Instructor and Lecturer on Law, Director of the Food Law and Policy Clinic, and Associate Director of the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation at Harvard Law School
  • I. Glenn Cohen, Professor of Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School
  • Mark Barnes, Partner, Ropes & Gray LLP

This event is free. Lunch will be served.

Cosponsored by the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation and the Petrie-Flom Center.

Teamwork as Malpractice

By Alex Stein

A team of doctors employed by the same hospital had failed to properly monitor a patient after his heart surgery in order to rule out a well-known neurological complication. The patient subsequently developed an irreversible neurological disorder, and a suit ensued.

The patient’s expert identified the team’s omission as malpractice. However, he was unable to attribute the omission to any specific member of the doctors’ team. Under the common law doctrine of vicarious liability, because the omission could be attributed to the team as a whole, the patient could still win his suit against the hospital. This doctrine holds that a hospital employing a team of doctors assumes vicarious liability for the team’s malpractice even when there is no way to single out the defaulting team member.

Washington’s appellate court, however, has decided that this doctrine was inapplicable because medical malpractice is a statutory, rather than common law, tort under Washington law.  Grove v. Peace Health St. Joseph Hospital, — P.3d —-, 2013 WL 5786888 (Wash.App. Div. 1 2013). Read More

Gregg Fields on the Failure of Public-Private Partnerships in Obamacare

By Christopher Robertson

Over at our sister blog for the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Gregg Fields has an insightful discussion of the way Obamacare has relied on private sector contractors to get its enrollment website up and running.  Gregg quotes Safra-affiliate Bill English, who explains the allure of public-private partnerships:   they “enable the public sector to harness the expertise and efficiencies that the private sector can bring to the delivery of certain facilities and services traditionally procured and delivered by the public sector.” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius gets the understatement of the year award: “Unfortunately, a subset of those contracts for HealthCare.gov have not met expectations.”

The contraception mandate decision

By Kevin Outterson

From my post at The Incidental Economist:

The Gilardi v. HHS decision is out today (on scribd), blocking the PPACA contraception mandate for the plaintiffs. Two brothers own Freshway Foods and a related company that offer a self-insured health plan to their 400 employees. For non-grandfathered plans with an annual enrollment period starting on or after September 23, 2010, PPACA required zero deductibles and cost sharing for a package of preventative services. One component of that package includes FDA-approved contraception. The Gilardi brothers claimed this requirement violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFFA). A majority of the Court agreed, sending the case back to the District Court for a reconsideration of the injunction.

This case raises an interesting point about pluralism in our society. When do we get to abstain from generally-applicable laws that violate our moral beliefs? Even more attenuated, when do we get to opt out because other people’s actions violate our beliefs? Can the Freshway companies decide to drop hospice care for their employees as violating their Catholic beliefs? Could a Muslim employer prevent employees from bringing home the bacon with their paychecks? Could a Baptist employer fire employees for watching porn at home on HBO?

Read More

Call for Abstracts, Petrie-Flom Center 2014 Annual Conference

The Petrie-Flom Center invites abstracts for its 2014 Annual Conference: “Behavioral Economics, Law, and Health Policy.” The conference will be held at Harvard Law School on May 2 and 3, 2014, and seeks to address the following questions:

  • Are there features unique to health and health care that prevent individuals, groups, and policymakers from making the best decisions?  What is a “best” decision, i.e., whose perspective should be paramount?
  • What types of barriers exist to rational decision making in the health care context, and what does rational decision making look like here?
  • Is exploitation of framing effects, default rules, nudges, and other elements of choice architecture appropriate when it comes to human health, or is this an area where pure autonomy should reign – or perhaps strong paternalism is needed? Is health policy special?
  • What should policymakers do when there is conflict between outcomes that might be good for individuals but not society more generally, and vice versa?  Where should the nudges push?
  • Which areas of health law, bioethics, and biotechnology policy are most amenable or resistant to manipulation of choice architecture?  When nudges are not plausible, what is the best way to overcome bounded rationality?
  • When might behavioral economics lead to the wrong results for health law, bioethics, and biotechnology policy?
  • How can manipulations of choice architecture be best evaluated empirically, and what ethical concerns might such research raise?
  • What are the most interesting or compelling health law, bioethics, and biotechnology policy nudges we should be thinking about today in the realms of obesity, organ donation, end-of-life care, biospecimen ownership and research, human subjects research, HIV testing, vaccination, health insurance, and other areas?

Please note that this list is not meant to be at all exhaustive; we hope to receive papers related to the conference’s general theme but not specifically listed here.

Abstracts are due by December 2, 2013.

For a full conference description, including the call for abstracts and registration information, please visit our website.

Livestream of Sessions from the 2013 International Neuroethics Society Annual Meeting

The Petrie-Flom Center is pleased to host a live webstream of sessions from the International Neuroethics Society‘s 2013 Annual Meeting on Friday, November 8, in the Petrie-Flom Center conference room (302) at 23 Everett St. on the Harvard Law School campus. Participants are encouraged to submit questions directly to the panels via email (administrator@neuroethicssociety.org) and Twitter (@NeuroethicsInfo).

12:15-2:15pm: “The Science and Ethics of Moral Enhancement”

Can we create a morality pill?  Neuroscientists are discovering how hormones and brain chemicals shape aspects of social behavior relevant for morality, including empathy, cooperation, aggression, trust, and altruism. This work opens potential avenues for pharmacological manipulation of ethical values. In this session, speakers will review studies demonstrating how neuromodulators shape moral decisions, evaluate the evidence for and challenges facing the development of moral-enhancing interventions, and discuss the ethical implications of shaping human morality.

Format:  20-minute presentations and 60 minutes of Q & A

Moderator:  Barbara Sahakian, University of Cambridge

Speakers:

  • Julian Savulescu, University of Oxford
  • Patricia Churchland, Univ of California-San Diego
  • Molly Crockett, University of Zurich

4:30-6:30pm, “States of Consciousness: Neuroethics in impairments of consciousness, brain-machine interfacing and end of life decisions?”

Recent brain-imaging studies detected covert awareness in a small proportion of patients in vegetative or minimally conscious state. In rare cases patients were even able to answer yes or no questions. Brain stimulation can lead to behavioral improvements of the minimal conscious. What are the ethical and legal implications of these findings for withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment or food and fluid? How reliable is communication via a brain-computer interface especially when it comes to end of life decisions? This panel will discuss a broad range of clinical challenges as well as ethico-legal implications with four renowned experts in the field.

Format:  Brief statements of 5 – 8 minutes followed by discussion among the panel and 60  minutes of Q & A

Moderator:  Jens Clausen, University of Tubingen

Speakers:

  • Lisa Claydon, University of Manchester
  • Joe Fins, Weill Cornell Medical College
  • John Pickard, University of Cambridge
  • Niko Schiff, Weill Cornell Medical College

This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact us at petrie-flom@law.harvard.edu or 617-496-4662.

Petrie-Flom Intern’s Weekly Round-Up: 10/25-11/1

By Fatima Mirza