The Chair’s Comments: A Word from Chuck Hollowell
Article Date: Tuesday, December 07, 2010
It is my honor and privilege to serve as the chair of the Health Law Section’s Council for 2010-2011.
For those of you whom I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting, let me introduce myself. I practice in Nelson Mullins’ Raleigh office, focusing on litigation for our healthcare clients, including certificate of need appeals, administrative and commercial litigation, professional licensure disputes, and medical staff peer review matters.
Several new attorneys joined the Health Law Section’s Council this year, including Alicia Gilleskie, Christy Gudaitis, Allyson Labban, Kimberly Licata, and Scott Templeton. We welcome them to the Council and are excited for the upcoming year.
One of the projects the Health Law Section has begun working on this year is an End-of-Life Public Education Campaign. This project grew out of the changes made to North Carolina’s end-of-life/advanced directives laws in 2007. Since that time, there has been a lot of education for health care providers in North Carolina, but not as much for the general public. We are working on getting the word out to the general public about the importance of having conversations with loved ones about these end-of-life issues before a health crisis hits, as well as providing information about how to document one’s preferences consistent with North Carolina’s law.
The first phase of the project will involve the production of a professionally-prepared educational DVD. The goal will be to use the DVD, along with pre- and post-training materials, to assist patients, families and caregivers in understanding available end-of-life care and planning options. The Health Law Section has established a Steering Committee, chaired by Ken Burgess, for this project. The committee includes members of the Health Law Section, as well as individuals from several other organizations who are eager to promote the goals of this project. Ken and other members of the committee have already raised over $30,000 from several organizations, including a grant of almost $13,000 from the NCBA Foundation Endowment. This project is off to a flying start!
Finally, our CLE Committee is working on plans for the Annual Meeting and CLE, which will be held on April 15, 2011 at the Bar Center in Cary. Please mark your calendars! If you have any suggestions for topics and/or speakers, please contact one of the members of this committee: Joe Kahn (jkahn@nexsenpruet.com), Don Esposito (don.esposito@rexhealth.com), or Alicia Gilleskie (agilleskie@smithlaw.com). Of course, if you would like to suggest a topic and yourself as a speaker, we welcome that too!
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