"Informed Patient Consent” – the Hot Topic for Dartmouth’s 2011 Law Day Celebration
On Friday, April 29, 2011, the Dartmouth Lawyers Association was again pleased to co-host the annual celebration of Law Day along with the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center, the Dartmouth Legal Studies Faculty, the Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Sciences, and the Daniel Webster Fund. The kick-off for the celebration began a day earlier with the Roger S. Aaron ’64 Lecture by Professor Benjamin W. Moulton whose topic, “Rethinking Informed Consent – The Case for Shared Decision Making,” addressed state and national efforts to educate patients so that they are better informed and more involved in their healthcare decisions and treatment. Our own DLA Vice President Xander Meise Bay ’01 introduced Mr. Moulton for the Aaron Lecture.
Professor Moulton (B.A. Harvard, J.D. Georgetown, M.P.H. Harvard) serves as the Senior Legal Advisor for the Foundation for Informed Decision Making and an Adjunct Professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, and he is the former Executive Vice President and Executive Director of the American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics. More important than these stellar accomplishments, however, is that Ben is also the proud parent of a soon-to-be freshman at Dartmouth!
Moderated by Dartmouth’s General Counsel Robert Donin (J.D., LLM), the first Law Day panel addressed the legal topic “The Right to Informed Patient Choice: Its Impact on Cost, Quality, End of Life Care, and Health Law Reform,” and, along with Professor Moulton, featured a lively and informative discussion among panelists from the Dartmouth medical and legal communities:
- Dr. E. Dale Collins Vidal is the Chief of Plastic Surgery at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, a professor of surgery at Dartmouth Medical School, the Medical Director of the Comprehensive Beast Program at DHMC, and the Director of the Center for Informed Choice at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice);
- Dr. Elliott Fisher is the Director of the Center for Population Health at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice, and the James W. Squires Professor of Medicine and Community and Family Medicine at the Dartmouth Medical School; and
- Lisa Snow Wade (’85) is the President of the New Hampshire-based law firm of Orr & Reno, P.A. and specializes in advising health care organizations on a variety of daily legal questions including Medicare/Medicaid, Stark and Fraud/Abuse compliance, EMTALA, HIPAA and HITECH Acts, quality assurance, and consent issues.
Immediately following, a second panel discussion titled, “Should You Go to Law School?,” provided Dartmouth undergraduates with career insights and answered questions from undergraduates who are interested in pursuing a legal career. Moderated by Xander Meise Bay, the panelists included attorneys Heather McMillan Nakai (’02) (Staff Attorney in the Office of the General Counsel of the National Indian Gaming Commission), Professor Moulton (P ’15), and Lisa Snow Wade (’85).
The Law Day events brought continued recognition to the Dartmouth Lawyers Association and were well-attended by students and others. Coordinated efforts among all co-sponsors brought flawless execution to the Law Day. Thanks go to the College and all of our co-sponsors, particularly to Sadhana Hall (Deputy Director at Rocky), Sarah Morgan (Coordinator of Public and Special Events at Rocky), and Dan Lee (Program Director at The Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science).
