Letter from the Chair
Louise Derevlany
Letter from the Chair
Hello Medicine and Law Committee!
Let me introduce myself. I am the chair of the ABA TIPS Medicine & Law Committee for the 2010-2011 Bar year. For those of you who don’t know me, I am a member of the firm of Heidell, Pittoni, Murphy & Bach, LLP I practice out of our Garden City office, where I specialize in the defense of both medical malpractice and product liability matters. I have been litigating medical and product cases for over 25 years, so I am very honored to serve as chair of the Medicine and Law Committee.
Let me first congratulate our retiring chair Chuck Eppolito for his stellar leadership. Under his guidance and dedication, we had a very successful year. Most significantly, our committee's contributions to TIPS and our achievements this past year were recognized with an award to our committee, which Chuck graciously accepted at the ABA annual meeting in San Francisco this summer. Our Committee not only met, but exceeded the section's recommendations for a successful committee. Many, many thanks Chuck for all your hard work and a job well done!
I look forward to hearing from all of members on what you expect from our committee as well as how you would like to contribute to our committee. We are continuing to hold monthly meetings, primarily by telephone. We will have an in person meeting on October 15 at the TIPS Fall meeting in Dallas, Texas. I plan to send out call in information through our list serve for any of our members who would like to join in by telephone. Our meeting minutes will be posted on our website.
We were pleased to submit an article to the TIPS Law Journal's Annual Survey of the Law this past year. The article contained 2 sections addressing developments in the areas of ex parte communications with non party treating physicians and telemedicine from Oct 2008 to Sept. 2009. Having contributed to part of this article, I found it to be a very rewarding experience.
We would like to keep the momentum going and again submit an article containing 2 or more topics in the area of Medicine and Law. Topics we suggest include how various states are dealing with: Medicare set asides: electronic medical records; HIPAA: and Frye/Daubert hearings in medical malpractice cases. But, we welcome all proposals. The article is NOT to be a state by state review but a commentary addressing cases from those states which have addressed the topic you chose between October 2009 and Sept. 2010. We are limited to forty pages in the Journal and the deadline for submissions is November 5, 2010. Focus on what you believe are the most important, different, or new decisions/regulations/trends. It is not necessary, or helpful, to enumerate everything that occurred during the survey period. What you can provide—and TIPS members are looking for—is an explanation of what the decision/regulation/trend means for their practices.
Please contact our chair elect and publications vice chair Jonathan Steen at: jsteen@rsslawfirm.comby October 7 if you can write a portion of an article for our committee. We also welcome submissions for publication in our Newsletters from you or your colleagues which you feel would be of interest to our members.
We are planning a live CLE for the ABA annual meeting in Toronto, Canada next summer. The CLE will address impaired professionals: representation, treatment and disciplinary committees. We have some speakers lined up but I welcome your recommendations. Additionally, we would like to put together a few webinars and need your assistance in finding speakers to address such topics as alternate dispute resolution in medical malpractice cases, and the efficacy of electronic medical records in patient care, insurance claims, and in the courtroom.
We are working to keep our website current with legislative updates that pertain to medicine and law. We welcome your input and invite you to send not just national but updates in your state laws that pertain to medicine and the law.
I can be reached at lderevlany@hpmb.com as well as 516-408-1600 and look forward to working with everyone on the committee.
Louise Derevlany, Chair
ABA TIPS Medicine & Law Committee
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