INDIANAPOLIS — A professor who teaches in the schools of law and medicine at Case Western Reserve University is the recipient of this year’s McDonald-Merrill-Ketcham Award.
The award and its concurrent lectureship honor individuals who have demonstrated excellence in fields of common interest to the legal and medical professions. It is sponsored by the William S. and Christine S. Hall Center for Law and Health at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, in conjunction with the IU School of Medicine, both on the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis campus.
As the 2014 award recipient, Maxwell J. Mehlman will present “Are Physicians Fiduciaries for Their Patients?” as the McDonald-Merrill-Ketcham Award Lecture at 12:45 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 20, in the Wynne Courtroom, Inlow Hall, 530 W. New York St.
“It is always a special pleasure to invite one of the giants of health law to our campus,” said Nicolas Paul Terry, the Hall Render Professor of Law and co-director of the William S. and Christine S. Hall Center for Law and Health. “Through his cutting-edge research and scholarship, Max Mehlman continues to be our thoughtful guide to developments in medical science and health policy.”
Mehlman, a Distinguished University Professor and the Arthur E. Petersilge Professor of Law, serves as the director of the Law-Medicine Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. He also holds an appointment as a professor of biomedical ethics at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
Numerous scholars and judges have questioned the assumption that the patient-physician relationship is a classic example of a fiduciary relationship. Mehlman’s lecture will examine the reason for their skepticism and explain why they are misguided.
The lecture will consider such details as whether physicians may ever act in their own self-interest at the expense of the patient’s health; the circumstances in which physicians may sacrifice the welfare of one patient in order to benefit other patients or society; and whether patients can waive or modify the physician’s fiduciary duty.
A panel discussion and a speakers’ reception will follow the lecture at 1:45 and 2:45 p.m., respectively. The events are free of charge, but registration is required.
The following will join Mehlman for the panel discussion:
Dr. Mary Ott, associate professor of pediatrics, IU School of Medicine.
Joshua Perry, assistant professor of business law and ethics and a Life Sciences Research Fellow, IU Kelley School of Business in Bloomington.
Mark Rothstein, the Herbert F. Boehl Chair of Law and Medicine at the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law and director of the Institute for Bioethics, Health Policy and Law at the University of Louisville School of Medicine.
