Symposium to address tort reform and medical malpractice

Jan. 18, 2005 -- The Washington University Center for the Study of Ethics & Human Values will sponsor a symposium on tort reform and medical malpractice from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Jan. 22 in Whitaker Hall, located at the corner of Hoyt Drive and Forest Park Parkway. The symposium, titled "Medical Malpractice and Tort Reform: Finding Truth and Common Ground," is free and open to the public.

Panelists include Missouri Sen. Joan Bray; Michael Delaney, president/chief executive officer of Healthcare Services Group; Norman Druck, M.D., immediate past president of the St. Louis Metropolitan Medical Society; Greg Laiben, M.D., medical director of Primaris; Susan Ford Robertson, J.D., Ford, Parshall & Baker LLC; Robert Rosenthal, J.D., Brown & James PC; Ken Vuylsteke, J.D., Fox & Vuylsteke LLP; and David Wooster, Mellon Financial Corp. The moderator is Bill McClellan, a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Students from the School of Medicine, the Olin School of Business and the School of Law organized the event. "The students who conceived this are trying to provide a program dealing with the 'truth' of the medical malpractice crisis," says Ira J. Kodner, M.D., center director and the Solon and Bettie Gershman Professor of Colon and Rectal Surgery. "They have represented all aspects of the problem and did not plan the symposium with any preconceived notion that one group is more right than the other."

Symposium participants will have the opportunity to meet the panelists at a continental breakfast, which will be served at 8 a.m., then again at lunch if they choose to attend one of three breakout sessions. Support for this event was provided in part by the Arthur and Helen Baer Foundation.

Preregistration is required to participate in the breakout sessions. To register, go to http://humanvalues.wustl.edu or call (314) 935-9358.

Washington University School of Medicine's full-time and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked second in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.