Robert A. Burt, the Alexander M. Bickel Professor of Law at Yale University, will be the keynote speaker at a March 27 symposium at the Quinnipiac University School of Law Center.
Robert A. Burt, the Alexander M. Bickel Professor of Law at Yale University, will be the keynote speaker at “What Are the Cures for Conflict in Health Care?” the Ninth John A. Speziale Alternative Dispute Resolution Symposium, which will take place from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday, March 27, at the Quinnipiac University School of Law Center on the North Haven Campus, 370 Bassett Road.
Burt, who has written extensively on biomedical ethics, will discuss conflicts between clinicians and patient surrogates about the discontinuance of treatment and the unjustified rush to litigation in the medical system’s struggle to deal with these conflicts, typically provoked by hospital counsel, as a window to examine general issues about response to conflicts in clinical practice.
Burt has been a member of the Yale faculty since 1976 and previously served on the law and medical school faculties at the University of Michigan. He is the author of “Death Is That Man Taking Names: Intersections of American Medicine, Law and Culture: and “Taking Care of Strangers: The Rule of Law in Doctor-Patient Relations.”
The symposium panelists include Debra Gerardi, a national leader in the emerging field of dispute resolution in health. Gerardi is a health care conflict engagement specialist and consultant providing coaching, mediation and facilitation services, conflict assessment and professional development programs to health care organizations internationally. She is an adjunct faculty member at the Hamline University School of Law Dispute Resolution and Health Law Institutes and a member of the clinical faculty at UCSF School of Nursing. She was the primary contributor to the 2008 Joint Commission Sentinel Event Alert addressing behaviors that undermine safe patient care.
The symposium will feature four mini-plenary sessions, including:
- Shared governance, a discussion about structures within health care organizations where conflicts exist between personnel policies, hospital bylaws and medical bylaws, as clinicians transition from independent practitioners to hospital employees.
- “Reframing Clinical Conflict,” in which participants will discuss a relational approach to conflict among health professionals and the skills needed by conflict specialists working in and with health care organizations.
- “Unexpected Outcomes in Patient Care” will cover how they are addressed and compare old processes of outcome and peer review with new processes.
- “ACOs (Accountable Care Organizations) and Private Practice: Looking to the Future.”
This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. To register, please click here.