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2019 Petrie-Flom Center Annual Conference: Consuming Genetics: Ethical and Legal Considerations of New Technologies

May 17, 2019
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Couldn't join us for the conference? Join the conversation on Twitter with #DTCgenome! And check out many of our speakers' slide presentations and our "Consuming Genetics" blog symposium! The…

Harvard Medical School Annual Bioethics Conference 2019: Controlling Death: The Policies, Practices, and Ethics of Choosing When We Die

April 11-12, 2019

Couldn't join us? Check out the Harvard Gazette's coverage of the event! Alvin Powell, "As the end nears, who’s in control?: Center for Bioethics examines physicians…

Transparency in Health and Health Care in the United States

Holly Fernandez Lynch, I. Glenn Cohen, Carmel Shachar, and Barbara J. Evans (eds.)
Cambridge University Press

Read the full introduction online now! This edited volume stems from the Petrie-Flom Center’s 2017 annual conference, which brought together leading experts to reach better understandings of this health…

Provider Consolidation: Implications for Costs and Quality in Health Care Delivery: A Health Policy and Bioethics Consortium

November 9, 2018

In the last decade, the traditional conception of individual physicians or medical groups has been increasingly replaced by consolidation under academic medical centers and other national or regional administrative organizations.…

Putting Patients at the Center of Research: Opportunities and Challenges for Ethical and Regulatory Oversight

June 29, 2018
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Description Efforts to place the patient at the center of medical research, spurred by the Affordable Care Act’s founding of the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, have begun…

2018 Petrie-Flom Center Annual Conference: Beyond Disadvantage: Disability, Law, and Bioethics

June 1, 2018
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Couldn't make it to the event? Check out some of the speakers' slides here! "Congress acknowledged that society's accumulated myths and fears about disability and disease are as…

The Development and Certification of Decision Aids: Promoting Shared Decision-Making for Patients with Serious Illness

April 18, 2018
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Couldn't join us for the event? Check out some of the panelist' slide presentations below! Decision aids can be highly-effective tools to promote shared decision making and support patients…

Health Law Workshop: Thaddeus Mason Pope

November 20, 2017

Presentation Download the Presentation: "From Informed Consent to Shared Decision Making: How Patient Decision Aids Can Improve Patient Safety and Reduce Medical Liability Risk" Background Reading: "Certified Patient Decision Aids:…

Caring for High Need Patients: A Health Policy and Bioethics Consortium

October 13, 2017

High-need patients require the most attention from health care providers and the health care system, with the top 1% of patients taking up more than 20% of health care expenditures. This panel…

The Ethics of Health Care Reform: A Health Policy and Bioethics Consortium

September 15, 2017

Congress has been locked in debate over the last year about repealing the Affordable Care Act. There have been numerous controversies over the process used, as well as the outcome…

Critical Pathways to Improved Care for Serious Illness: Concluding Convening

June 23, 2017

Download the Report "Toward a Serious Illness Program Design & Implementation Framework" from the roundtables! Couldn't join us for the event? Check out the slide presentation below! At this…

The Sean Pendergast Show with Dr. Glenn Cohen, Harvard Law Professor

Interviewing I. Glenn Cohen (Faculty Director)
The TJ Show, AMP Radio 103.3 FM

Harvard Law Professor [I. Glenn Cohen (Faculty Director)] joins Sean to discuss a study he and a Harvard group did on player safety in the NFL, how the game can…

2017 Petrie-Flom Center Annual Conference: Transparency in Health and Health Care: Legal and Ethical Possibilities and Limits

April 28, 2017
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Couldn't attend in person? You can still check out the conversation on Twitter: @PetrieFlom #transparencyinhealth! And check out many of the speakers' slide presentations below! Description Transparency is a…

Harvard Medical School 2017 Bioethics Conference: The Ethics of "Making Babies"

April 6 - 7, 2017

Description The use of assisted reproductive technologies raises far-reaching ethical and legal implications, yet there is little regulatory oversight of these medical procedures in the United States. In a field…

Opiate Regulation Policies: Balancing Pain and Addiction

April 3, 2017
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Couldn't join us for the event? Check out the slide presentations below! Description The current opiate epidemic has spurred long-overdue scrutiny on the pharmaceutical production and distribution of opiate…

Promoting Accurate and Useful Public Reporting on Physicians: A Health Policy and Bioethics Consortium

March 29, 2017

Panelists Robert Yeh, MD, Director, Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Center for Outcomes Research in Cardiology at BIDMC; Medical Director of Trial Design, Harvard Clinical Research Institute Thomas Lee,…

Critical Pathways to Improved Care for Serious Illness

March 10, 2017

This discussion continued at a second roundtable event on June 23, 2017. Learn more on the website! Download the Report "Toward a Serious Illness Program Design & Implementation Framework" from the two…

Fifth Annual Health Law Year in P/Review

January 23, 2017
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Couldn't make it to the event? Check out some of the speakers' slides as well as the Health Affairs blog symposium! Description The Fifth Annual Health Law Year in…

Senate committee calls for ban on surgeons conducting simultaneous operations

Jonathan Salzman and Jenn Abelson
Boston Globe

From the article: A powerful Senate committee wants all hospitals to explicitly ban surgeons from overseeing two simultaneous operations, weighing in on a controversy that has roiled Massachusetts General Hospital…

Call for Abstracts: The Ethics of “Making Babies” image

Call for Abstracts: The Ethics of “Making Babies”, Harvard Medical School

Deadline: January 31, 2017, 5:00 PM

The use of assisted reproductive technologies raises far-reaching ethical and legal implications, yet there is little regulatory oversight of these medical procedures in the United States. In a field marked…

Conflict of interest for NFL doctors to report to teams: Harvard study

Scott Malone, quoting new report by Petrie-Flom affiliates Christopher R. Deubert, I. Glenn Cohen, and Holly Fernandez Lynch
Reuters

From the article: The doctors who patrol the sidelines of NFL games to assess whether injured players can safely return to the field should report to the league and players'…

Harvard study: NFL should end doctor-team relationships

Scooby Axson, quoting new report by Petrie-Flom affiliates Christopher R. Deubert, I. Glenn Cohen, and Holly Fernandez Lynch
Sports Illustrated

From the article: A study conducted by Harvard Law School recommended that any medical personnel treating NFL players should stop reporting to team management or coaches. The two-year study by…

Harvard study on NFL player safety calls for outside doctors

Jimmy Golen, quoting new report by Petrie-Flom affiliates Christopher R. Deubert, I. Glenn Cohen, and Holly Fernandez Lynch
Seattle Times

From the article: Doctors who decide whether an NFL player is healthy enough to go into the game shouldn’t be paid by the teams that have a stake…

Harvard Study on NFL Player Safety Calls for Outside Doctors

Jimmy Golen, quoting new report by Petrie-Flom affiliates Christopher R. Deubert, I. Glenn Cohen, and Holly Fernandez Lynch
ABC News

From the article: Doctors who decide whether an NFL player is healthy enough to go into the game shouldn't be paid by the teams that have a stake in…

Harvard Releases Player Health Recommendations That The NFL Will Likely Ignore

Lindsey Adler, quoting report by Petrie-Flom affiliates Christopher R. Deubert, I. Glenn Cohen, and Holly Fernandez Lynch
Deadspin

From the article: Harvard University wants the NFL, the NFLPA, and everyone complicit in the NFL industrial complex—all the way down to media and fans—to take…

Study: NFL should break ties between doctors, teams

Quoting report by Petrie-Flom affiliates Christopher R. Deubert, I. Glenn Cohen, and Holly Fernandez Lynch
ESPN

From the article: Medical personnel caring for NFL players should no longer report to team management or coaches, according to a Harvard Law School report published Thursday. The recommendation comes…

NFL doctors should not report to teams, Harvard study recommends

Rick Maese, quoting new report by Petrie-Flom affiliates Christopher R. Deubert, I. Glenn Cohen, and Holly Fernandez Lynch
Washington Post

From the article: A new report from Harvard Law School proposes drastic changes in the way health care is administered in the NFL, urging the nation’s most popular…

When NFL Calls the Doctor

I. Glenn Cohen (Faculty Director), Holly Fernandez Lynch (Executive Director), and Christopher R. Deubert (Senior Law & Ethics Associate)
Boston Globe

The Boston Globe limits non-subscribers to five free articles per month. Harvard affiliates may view the full text via Hollis+. From the article: FROM MAJOR media outlets to federal research…

NFL doctors’ conflicts of interest could endanger players, report says

Ike Swetlitz, quoting report by Petrie-Flom affiliates Christopher R. Deubert, I. Glenn Cohen, and Holly Fernandez Lynch
STAT

From the article: Doctors that work for professional football teams have conflicts of interest that could jeopardize players’ health, according to a report by Harvard researchers. The report released…

Book Launch: Nudging Health: Health Law and Behavioral Economics

November 16, 2016

In November 2016, Johns Hopkins University Press published Nudging Health: Health Law and Behavioral Economics, co-edited by Petrie-Flom Center Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen, Executive Director Holly Fernandez Lynch, and Christopher…

Religion, Medicine, and Law: Can Current Conflicts Be Healed?: HLS Dean Martha Minow to Deliver 2016 George W. Gay Lecture

Center for Bioethics, Harvard Medical School

2016 George W. Gay Lecture Religion, Medicine, and Law: Can Current Conflicts Be Healed? Martha Minow Morgan and Helen Chu Dean and Professor of Law at Harvard Law School Thursday, November 3, 2016, 4:30 …

The 21st-Century Advanced Illness Care Team: How Team-based Care is Moving Medicine Beyond the Clinic into the Home and Community

November 2, 2016
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Care for advanced illness is moving beyond the hospital and physician office and into the home and community. Addressing the needs of the individual with advanced illness increasingly requires an…

RECEIVE 30% OFF! Nudging Health: Health Law and Behavioral Economics

I. Glenn Cohen (Faculty Director), Holly Fernandez Lynch (Executive Director), and Christopher T. Robertson (Academic Fellow alumnus), eds.
Johns Hopkins University Press

Abstract of the Introduction: This introductory chapter to the edited volume Nudging Health: Health Law and Behavioral Economics (I. Glenn Cohen, Holly Fernandez Lynch, Christopher T. Robertson, eds.) introduces the…

Concurrent Surgeries: Medical, Legal, and Ethical Issues

October 27, 2016
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Couldn't attend the event? Check out selected speakers' slide presentations! Concurrent, or overlapping, surgeries involve the simultaneous scheduling of substantial portions of two or more surgeries under the supervision…

Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen Joins National Academy of Sciences Committee: Cohen and HMS Center for Bioethics Director Robert Truog to Advise on Issues in Organ Donor Intervention Research

Petrie-Flom Center

I. Glenn Cohen, Faculty Director of Harvard Law School’s Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics and Robert Truog, Director of the Harvard Medical School Center…

Social Media Use in Research Recruitment: A New Guidance Document from Petrie-Flom and Harvard Catalyst

Luke Gelinas (Petrie-Flom/Harvard Catalyst Fellow in Clinical Research Ethics)
Petrie-Flom Center / Harvard Catalyst

Cross-posted at the Petrie-Flom Center's blog Bill of Health. Imagine this scenario: you are a researcher conducting a clinical trial on a promising treatment for a rare but serious…

PFC Spotlight: Student Fellow Alumnus Neel Shah

Petrie-Flom Center

Dr. Neel Shah was a Student Fellow for the 2007-2008 academic year, while in his third year at Harvard Medical School. Then Academic Fellow and now Faculty Director I. Glenn…

The Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC) Launches Service Affiliate C-TAC Innovations,: Which Includes Respecting Choices®

The Coalition to Transform Care (C-TAC) is the Petrie-Flom Center's partner in the Project on Advanced Care and Health Policy, launched in March 2016. La Crosse, WI - C-TAC expands…

The Ethical Duty to Know: The Tragic Case of Facilitated Communication for Autism

June 23, 2016

Event Description Our speakers will review and discuss the history of a technique called Facilitated Communication, purportedly used to communicate with individuals with severe autism, developmental delay, or brain injuries.…

Aligning Policy and People: Why the Time is Right to Transform Advanced Care

June 21, 2016
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Couldn't join us in person? Join the conversation on Twitter! @PetrieFlom and @CTACorg are live-tweeting using #POAC #advancedcare Description This conference was the inaugural event of the Project on…

Radical Redesign of Health Care and Its Implications for Policy: A Lecture by Donald Berwick, MD, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (2010-2011)

June 2, 2016

Special Lecture and Reception to Open ASLME’s 39th Annual Health Law Professors Conference This event was free and open to the public. Opening Lecture and Reception hosted by…

Review: I Glenn Cohen, Patients with Passports: Medical Tourism, Law, and Ethics, Oxford University

Reviewed by Douglas MacKay
Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal

From the review: Glenn Cohen’s Patients with Passports: Medical Tourism, Law, and Ethics offers a thorough examination of the growing practice of medical tourism, the legal regulations governing…

From Medical Experimentation to Non-Medical Experimentation: What Can and Cannot be Learned from Medicine as to the Ethics of Legal and Other Non-Medical Experiments?

I. Glenn Cohen (Faculty Director) and D. James Greiner
Charles Fried, Medical Experimentation: Personal Integrity and Social Policy, New Edition (Oxford University Press)

First published in 1974, Charles Fried's Medical Experimentation is a classic statement of the moral relationship between doctor and patient, as expressed within the concept of personal care. This concept…

Harvard Medical School’s 2016 Bioethics Conference: Social Justice and Ethics Committees in Health Care: Core to our Mission or None of our Business?

April 14, 2016

Couldn't make it to the conference? Join the conversation on Twitter using #HMSABC! Description This multidisciplinary program was co-sponsored by the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School and…

The Limits to Consumerism in Health Care: A Lecture by Mary Anne Bobinski

March 2, 2016
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Couldn't attend the event? Check out some of our speakers' slide presentations! Description It is often said that health care has moved from paternalism, in the form of &ldquo…

Deception in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Psychogenic Non-epileptic Seizures

February 4, 2016

Event Description Neurologists who treat epilepsy face substantial difficulty distinguishing "true" seizures caused by abnormal electrical discharges from seizures that are caused by psychological factors (psychogenic nonepileptic seizures, or PNES).…

Neuroethics Seminar: Busting Clots on Your Behalf?: The Ethics of Presumed Consent to Thrombolytics in Acute Stroke

November 5, 2015

Event Description You've just suffered a large stroke, and are unable to communicate. Your doctor in the ER wants to give you a thrombolytic ("clot-busting") drug. The drug will…

2015 Annual Conference: Law, Religion, and Health in America

May 8 - 9, 2015
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Join the conversation on Twitter! @PetrieFlom #lawreligionhealth And check out many of the speakers' slide presentations below! Conference Description Religion and medicine have historically gone hand in hand, but increasingly…

After Hobby Lobby: What Is Caesar's, What Is God's?

May 7, 2015
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Couldn't join us in person? Join the conversation on Twitter! @PetrieFlom #lawreligionhealth Pre-Conference Session As prelude to the 2015 Petrie-Flom Center Annual Conference, “Law, Religion, and Health in America,…

ReSourcing Big Data: A Symposium and Collaboration Opportunity

Harvard Catalyst

March 23: Symposium 9:00am-5:00pm Joseph B. Martin Conference Center Harvard Medical School Extant data is an inexhaustible resource that is not yet very well understood and is underutilized. The focus…

Health Law Workshop: Nadia Sawicki

March 9, 2015

Presentation Download the Presentation: "Modernizing Informed Consent: Expanding the Boundaries of Materiality" About the Presenter Nadia A. Sawicki is Associate Professor of Law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.…

Houston doctor sued for trading prescriptions for sex

St. John Barned-Smith, quoting I. Glenn Cohen (Faculty Director)
Houston Chronicle

[...] Legal experts who specialize in medical ethics said the allegations and actions captured on film were "egregious." Medical standards prohibit doctors from engaging in sexual relationships with patients. "This seems…

Some Insurance Companies Ask Their Customers to Cross the Border for Care: Is the practice going to spread?

Adam Teicholz and I. Glenn Cohen (Faculty Director) and
New Republic

Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen has co-authored a new piece in New Republic on the practice adopted by some insurance companies of sending clients across the border for less expensive…

What Ethicists Should Know about the Law

Holly Fernandez Lynch (Executive Director)
Harvard Medical School

On Thursday, June 19, Petrie-Flom Executive Director Holly Fernandez Lynch will speak on "What Ethicists Should Know about the Law" as part of Harvard Clinical Bioethics, a course led by Robert…

Doctors pushed to reject role in executions

Rachel Maddow, interviewing I. Glenn Cohen (Faculty Director)
"The Rachel Maddow Show," MSNBC

Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show to discuss his recent opinion piece in JAMA, coauthored with Robert D. Truog and Mark A. Rockoff (both of…

Direct-to-Patient Laboratory Test Reporting: Balancing Access With Effective Clinical Communication

Michael J. Young, MPhil (Petrie-Flom Student Fellow); Ethan Scheinberg, BTL; Harold Bursztajn, MD
JAMA

In February 2014, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a landmark ruling allowing patients direct access to completed medical laboratory reports. The ruling took effect April 7, 2014, and gives…

Doctors assist in executions despite ethics rules

Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Seth Klamann, citing I. Glenn Cohen (Faculty Director)
LA Times

[...] A group of legal experts called the Death Penalty Committee of the Constitution Project recently recommended that doctors or other medical personnel supervise all medical aspects of executions, even when…

Physicians, Medical Ethics, and Execution by Lethal Injection

Robert D. Truog, MD; I. Glenn Cohen, JD (Faculty Director); Mark A. Rockoff, MD
JAMA

Petrie-Flom Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen has coauthored a new opinion piece now available through JAMA. From the article: In an opinion dissenting from a Supreme Court decision to deny…

2014 Annual Conference: Behavioral Economics, Law, and Health Policy

May 2 - May 3, 2014
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Couldn't join us in person at Harvard Law School? Join the conversation on Twitter using #BELHP2014! We also liveblogged the full event at Bill of Health throughout the conference…

An Empirical Method for Materiality: Would Conflict of Interest Disclosures Change Patient Decisions?

Roy G. Spece Jr., David V. Yokum, Andrea-Gale Okoro, and Christopher T. Robertson (Petrie-Flom Affiliated Faculty; Former Petrie-Flom Academic Fellow)
American Journal of Law and Medicine

Abstract: The law has long been concerned with the agency problems that arise when advisors, such as attorneys or physicians, put themselves in financial relationships that create conflicts of interest.…

HLS Event Opens Dialogue on Role of Race in Healthcare

Andrew Ma
The Harvard Crimson

Harvard Crimson coverage of the Petrie-Flom Center's September 17, 2013, panel discussion, "Patient Discrimination against Medical Personnel," featuring Kimani Paul-Emile of Fordham Law School discussing her article in the UCLA Law…

Patient Discrimination against Medical Personnel image

Patient Discrimination against Medical Personnel

September 17, 2013
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We don't stand for doctors discriminating against patients on the basis of race, but what about when the tables are turned? At this event, Kimani Paul-Emile of Fordham Law…

Conflicts of Conscience in Health Care

February 27, 2009

On the occasion of publication of a new book on physician conscience clauses written by Holly Fernandez Lynch, this panel examined the legal and ethical aspects of the current debates…