The teleconferences are free to ACR Healthcare Section members. Good news: it takes less than a minute to join the section online and costs only $15 for ACR Members. Just contact ACR’s Membership Department at membership@ACRnet.org, or log into the Online Member Center, click on “My Account History,” and click on “Add Sections.”

 Audio CDs available. Contact Anne-Marie Burton at aburton@acrnet.org

Additional programs are being planned for 2007. Stay tuned for details.

Dr. Phyllis B. Kriteck is sole proprietor of Courage, a consultation, training and mediation services company focusing on conflict transformation. A nationally and internationally known nurse scholar, she has more than 30 years of experience as a nurse educator. In this teleconference, Dr. Kriteck will highlight and discuss key items from her book: “Negotiating at an Uneven Table – Developing Moral Courage in Resolving Our Conflicts” and how they relate to healthcare mediation. If you haven’t already had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Kriteck, you are in for a real treat. Dr. Kriteck is sought as a speaker and consultant on conflict resolution, organizational development, gender and communication, leadership development, healthcare services for underserved populations, healing processes and nursing philosophy. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and has served as Co-Chair of the Health Sector of the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution (SPIDR). Dr. Kriteck is a past recipient of a Kellogg National Leadership Fellowship where she began her involvement in conflict resolution.

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Wednesday, October 18, 2006: Integrating Mediation Skills into Ethics Consults by Betsy Johnson, Halina Wiczyk, MD and Katherine Hall.

The intent of this teleconference is to share with participants a model of integrating mediation skills into health care ethics consultations. Often, in the field of health care ethics, families, care providers and patients face some of the most challenging situations in their lives. It is not unusual to have truly life and death decisions at stake. Emotions can run high and can be mixed with miscommunications and assumptions from any of the parties. This combination can cause parties to become very entrenched in a position that may not reflect the values of the individual patient. As is often the case, the patient may not be able to express his or her specific treatment wishes due to the severity of their medical situation. Betsy Johnson is a consultant in health care ethics and works with Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, MA as well as the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation, Central/West Region. She is the immediate past Co-Chair of Baystate Medical Center’s Ethics Service and ACR’s Health Care Section.

Halina Wiczyk, MD is a reproductive endocrinologist and the immediate past Co-Chair of the Ethics Service of Baystate Medical Center (BMC). She also serves as a member of BMC’s Ethics Service.

Katherine Hall is the Director of Professional Development for American International College in Springfield, MA. She serves as a member of the Baystate Medical Center’s Ethics Service and is a mediation consultant to the Ethics Service.

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Tuesday, December 5, 2006: Mediating Medical Malpractice Lawsuits Presented by Chris Stern Hyman, JD

Chris Stern Hyman, JD conducted a study with the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation to mediate medical malpractice lawsuits and measure the participants’ satisfaction with mediation. In the teleconference Chris will discuss the data from the study, including:  - number of cases mediated - outcome of the mediations - satisfaction of the participants - connection of settlement with apology  She will describe some of the cases to illustrate relevant findings and answer questions about the study and its findings. Chris Stern Hyman is a health care lawyer and a mediator. In 1998 she formed Medical Mediation Group LLC with Marc Fleisher, JD, which provides mediation services to resolve disputes in health care. Medical Mediation Group conducts trainings and mediates medical malpractice lawsuits and other conflicts arising in health care facilities. Chris was co-principal investigator for the Demonstration Mediation and ADR Project of the Project on Medical Liability in Pennsylvania and principal investigator of the New York City Pilot Project for Mediation of Medical Malpractice Claims funded by a grant to Columbia Law School. She can be reached at cshyman@nymedicalmediation.com.

This teleconference will be moderated by Carol B. Liebman is a Clinical Professor at Columbia Law School where she is the Director of the Columbia Law School Mediation Clinic and the Negotiation Workshop. She has mediated cases involving medical malpractice, discrimination, family issues, public agencies, community disputes, business conflicts and educational institutions and is a nationally recognized speaker and trainer in conflict resolution. She has designed and presented mediation training for a variety of groups including the Certification Program in Bioethics of College of Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine; New York’s First Department, Appellate Division, Attorney Disciplinary Committee; the Association of the Bar of the City of New York; and high school students, parents and teachers and taught about negotiation and mediation in Vietnam, Israel, Brazil and China.  Professor Liebman was co-investigator for the Demonstration Mediation and ADR Project a part of the Project on Medical Liability in Pennsylvania www.pewtrusts.org/pdf/LiebmanReport.pdf funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. She is the co-author with Nancy Dubler of Bioethics Mediation: A Guide to Shaping Shared Solutions, United Hospital Fund, 2004. She is also a member of New York City’s Civilian Complaint Review Board. She can be reached at cliebman@law.columbia.edu.

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Wednesday, January 17, 2007: Highlights of the Medicare Mediation Program Presented by Todaro, MA and Pat Shanahan, MBA.

In 2003 The Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services (CMS) launched a national mediation program for Medicare beneficiaries to resolve the clinical quality of care concerns they had with medical practitioners and providers. This program is an example of how mediation is used to increase beneficiary satisfaction with the delivery of their health care. We will explore the link between achieving beneficiary satisfaction at the individual level and initiating systemic changes within complex environments. We will share actual examples of how the resolution of beneficiary complaints, using interest-based problem solving, has contributed to major and minor improvements in health care.

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Tuesday, February 13, 2007: Medical-Legal Partnership – Integrating Preventative Law and Preventative Medicine. Presented by Lauren Smith, MD, MPH and Ellen Lawton, Esq.

The Medical-Legal Partnership for Children (MLPC) is an innovative program at Boston University School of Medicine / Boston Medical Center that partners lawyers with pediatricians to ensure that children’s basic needs are met. Lauren Smith, MD, MPH, and Ellen Lawton, JD, of the MLPC will present “Disparities in Health, Disparities in Law: New Strategies in Promoting Patient Health”, highlighting the impact of unmet basic needs on patient health. The tele-seminar will take a look at families whose basic needs -- for housing, food, education, health care, and safety -- are unmet due to poverty, bear significant health consequences. Front-line health care providers are in the best position to identify families whose health and well-being are compromised by social determinants that are responsive to legal remedies, such as healthy housing and access to food stamps and disability payments.

Ellen Lawton, JD, is Executive Director of the Medical Legal Partnership for Children. Ms. Lawton was chiefly responsible for working with the Kellogg and Robert Wood Johnson Foundations to secure their support for the creation of the national organization. Ms. Lawton has served as MLPC’s Legal Director since 2001 and is nationally known for her leadership in developing the medical-legal collaborative model. She directed a federally-funded Welfare-to-Work advocacy project at BMC. Ms. Lawton has published many articles in both clinical and legal journals describing the medical-legal collaborative model. She was a Harvard Law School Wasserstein Fellow for 2004 – 2005. Ms. Lawton graduated from the Northeastern University School of Law in 1993. Prior to her work with MLPC, she clerked for the Honorable Frederick L. Brown of the Massachusetts Appeals Court and then served as staff attorney for the Massachusetts Department of Social Services.

Lauren A. Smith, MD, MPH, is the National Medical Director of the Medical-Legal Partnership for Children and is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Smith has over 10 years of experience serving as a pediatrician for Boston children and currently specializes in inpatient pediatric medicine at Boston Medical Center. Her research has focused on the implication of public polices for child health and racial and ethnic disparities in child health. She has authored two recent reports highlighting the impact of affordable housing and energy costs on child health and well being. She has spoken extensively in academic, policy and community forums and has briefed policymakers on her research and clinical experiences at the local, state and federal levels. She is currently serving as a W.T. Grant Health Policy Fellow in the office of House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi. She recently served as a member of the Massachusetts Commission to Eliminate Racial Disparities in Health and was chair of the subcommittee addressing the impact of social factors on health. She also served on Governor Patrick’s transition working group focused on human services. A graduate of Harvard College, she completed her residency and chief residency at Children's Hospital, Boston and her fellowship in General Pediatrics at Boston Medical Center.

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