This weekend conference will provide an overview and discussion of organizational, professional, legal, and policy issues that arise in contemporary health care and clinical ethics services. It is aimed at providing health care and legal professionals with an introduction to the frameworks and skills needed to navigate the complex ethical and legal terrain through various clinical settings. Participants will gain practical experience in discerning the differences and similarities between ethical and legal resolutions of conflicts that occur in treatment decisions and organizational structures. Topics discussed will include advance directives, assessing decision-making capacity, selecting a surrogate decision maker, forgoing life sustaining treatment, utilization of new medical technologies, and health insurance regulation. Many presentations will use a case-based approach to maximize audience participation, and a mock court trial will simulate ethical and legal decision making in “real time.”
