MEDx Talks 2024

Liberty View at Independence Visitor Center

10.15.24

White and Williams presents MEDx Talks, a series of high-level presentations on cutting-edge topics impacting the healthcare industry. Designed to provide insights into some of today’s biggest issues and innovations, MEDx Talks will present thought-provoking presentations in a half-day program. Whether you are a risk manager, in-house counsel, C-Suite executive or other administrator, healthcare professional, educator, investor or someone who wants to stay in the know, you do not want to miss this program!

click here to register

Tuesday, October 15, 2024 | 8:00 AM - 2:30 PM
Breakfast and lunch will be served (with outdoor seating available overlooking Independence Hall).
Liberty View at Independence Visitor Center | 599 Market Street | Philadelphia, PA 19106

A Glimpse Into our 2024 MEDx Topics and Speakers

Finding Joy in Medicine through Generative AI

Dr. Rebecca Mishuris, Chief Medical Information Officer and VP, Digital at Mass General Brigham

Dr. Rebecca Mishuris will review a framework for evaluation of generative artificial intelligence (genAI) in healthcare, including limitations and challenges with its use. She will discuss a large-scale pilot on the use of large language models to generate clinical notes, and the impact this is having on clinician burnout.

Dr. Mishuris is Chief Medical Information Officer and VP, Digital at Mass General Brigham, responsible for the vision, strategy and implementation of technology to support care delivery. She is Faculty at Harvard Medical School, and a practicing primary care physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. In addition to her hospital leadership, Dr. Mishuris conducts research on the intersection of technology and the quintuple aim of healthcare.

Glowing Tumors: Enhancing Lung Cancer Resectability and Survival Rates with a Novel Fluorescent Intraoperative Agent

Dr. Matthew Puc, Chief of Thoracic Surgical Oncology at Virtua Health

A new drug is being used to illuminate lung cancers in real time so thoracic surgeons can more accurately localize primary lung tumors and even detect secondary lesions, among other benefits. Dr. Matthew Puc will discuss this first-in-class targeted intraoperative molecular imaging agent and its use in improving tumor resection and saving the lives of lung cancer patients.

Dr. Matthew Puc is board certified in General Surgery and Thoracic Surgery. He earned his medical degree from Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He completed his General Surgery Residency training at UMDNJ/Robert Wood Johnson/Cooper University Hospital. He completed his Cardiothoracic Residency at University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center and then completed an Advanced Fellowship in Thoracic Surgical Oncology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Puc is Chief of Thoracic Surgical Oncology at Virtua Health. He also serves as the Program Director for the PENN Medicine/Virtua Cancer Program and as Virtua’s Cancer Lead Physician (CLP) for the institution’s Commission on Cancer (CoC) Committee. In addition, he is the Director of Thoracic Robotic Surgery. He has an academic appointment at Rowan University as Clinical Associate Professor/Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine. He is also a member of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS). Over the course of his career, he has published multiple articles in various peer-reviewed journals.

Body Positive Health Care: Pop Culture’s Impact on Size-Inclusive Medicine in the Era of Ozempic

Dr. Mara Gordon, Family Physician, Author and Faculty Member at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University

In the age of wellness fads and quick fixes, primary care physicians and other healthcare providers often need to field questions from their patients about whether Ozempic® and similar drugs are the solution to their goals. With the constant barrage of celebrities’ endorsements for weight loss, the need for a nuanced approach to weight loss discussion is more important than ever to address patient’s weight concerns. Dr. Gordon will discuss her approach to size-inclusive primary care and the intricacies of cardiometabolic health, body size, and patient expectations in a culture obsessed with weight loss.

Dr. Mara Gordon is a Philadelphia-based family physician and writer. She writes frequently about the culture of medicine, reproductive justice, and fatphobia in health care. Her writing has appeared on National Public Radio, in the New York Times, and the Philadelphia Inquirer, among other publications. She is on the faculty at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, where she directs their narrative medicine program and serves as a primary care physician for adults and children. She is at work on a book about body liberation in the halls of medicine. You can find her at maragordonmd.com.

Wow! Did You See That Verdict?

Dr. Huntley Taylor, Ph.D., Founder and CEO of Taylor Trial Consulting and Andrew Susko, Partner, Healthcare Practice, White and Williams LLP

Jury verdicts in excess of ten million dollars have become common place across the nation. While inflated verdicts are not new, the frequency of nuclear verdicts in medical professional negligence cases, the seemingly ever-increasing dollar amounts awarded, and the impact of this shifting landscape on settlement amounts before trial are more significant than ever before. Andrew Susko and Dr. Jill Huntley Taylor will discuss the latest trends in jury verdicts, factors contributing to the frequency of escalating verdict amounts, and the ways health care institutions and the lawyers representing them can address the emerging challenges.

Dr. Huntley Taylor is the founder and CEO of Taylor Trial Consulting, a national trial consulting firm headquartered in Philadelphia, PA. She has a Ph.D. in social psychology and for over 25 years has been a go-to consultant for conducting jury research, focus groups, witness preparation, and jury selections on cases across the country. She works on a wide variety of case types and has extensive experience working on medical malpractice cases. Dr. Huntley Taylor is often invited to speak at firm or corporate seminars, bar conferences, give statements to the media, and has made guest appearances on CNN’s AC360 with Anderson Cooper, Law & Crime, Court TV, and Inside Edition.

For over 30 years, Andy Susko has focused his practice on providing cost effective representation in complex litigation matters to a wide variety of businesses, including leading healthcare institutions, public electrical and natural gas utilities, equipment and tool manufacturers, and life, health and disability insurers. Andy has substantial courtroom experience, trying cases to jury verdict and through appeal in state and federal court. He concentrates his defense trial practice in health care and medical malpractice liability claims, utility catastrophic loss and contractual indemnity actions, construction accident claims, product liability actions, and life and disability claims, including cases where punitive damages and bad faith are pursued.

Rehab-ing in Virtual Reality - It’s Real!

Michele Rodell, Clinical Specialist Physical Therapist at Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation

Virtual reality (VR) continues to evolve as an effective tool for rehabilitation that promotes an immersive experience and motivates the patient often using game-like interactions and sensory feedback. Virtual systems of varying complexity are currently being used to treat a variety of patient populations. Here, we will discuss VR use in neurological and amputee populations and highlight examples of VR treatments in an inpatient rehabilitation hospital.

Michele Rodell is a Clinical Specialist Physical Therapist at Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation - Marlton. She works primarily with the neurological population with focus in brain injury and stroke. Michele received her undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering from the College of New Jersey and completed her MSME degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, working in the area of rehabilitation robotics and haptics. She began clinical studies at the University of Delaware and completed MS and DPT degrees. Her interest in brain injury was developed through clinical experiences in the Brain Trauma Unit at JFK Medical Center (Edison, NJ) and as a staff therapist at Braintree Rehabilitation Hospital (Braintree, MA). She is currently certified as a Stroke Rehabilitation Specialist and has certification in Vestibular Rehabilitation through the American Institute of Balance. She is excited to be part of student clinical education, hospital-wide brain injury education, and facilitating the Kessler Brain Injury Support Group.

More Than a Diagnosis: Providing Equitable Care for People with Physical and Intellectual Disabilities

Anna L. Thomas, MSN, RN, CCRN, CPPS, CNL, Patient Safety Analyst at ECRI

People with disabilities, including those related to mobility, cognition, hearing, vision, independent living, and self-care, are more likely to experience higher rates of adverse health. While safety is of the upmost importance for all patients, many safety measures and plans fail to adequately consider or address the impact of disabilities on safety and care. This presentation will discuss strategies that can inform patient-centered care for this vulnerable population through the lens of total systems safety.

Anna L. Thomas MSN, RN, CCRN, CPPS, CNL Anna began her career as a critical care registered nurse. She is a certified critical care nurse and Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL), an expert in caring for the very critically ill. Anna earned an MSN from Drexel University. During graduate school, she completed an IRB-approved nursing research project, MEWS Scores and ICU Readmission Gap Analysis, which was awarded her network’s 2019 Research and Quality Award and was presented at the state and national levels.

Anna worked with senior leadership at a large academic medical center to develop a partnership with a local university, creating a CNL program and facilitating education for CNLs. Before coming to ECRI, Anna was the CNL for a 12-bed ICU where she was responsible for nursing sensitive quality indicators, risk mitigation, and cost reduction for the vulnerable critical care population. Anna was responsible for event reporting and analysis and utilizing that data to drive quality improvement projects. She led event investigation efforts and was an active member of her hospital’s Nursing Peer Review committee. Anna was also the chair of the Evidence Based Practice and Nursing Research committee, where she had the opportunity to serve as a mentor for various patient safety and quality improvement initiatives.

At ECRI, Anna is a patient safety analyst within the Patient Safety Organization (PSO). She serves as a liaison for PSO members and contributes to various client deliverables and PSO functions. As a member of the Client Learning Products and Services team, Anna reviews ECRI publications to ensure the most accurate and current information is available to members, has redesigned the curated literature search process, and was on the inaugural Safety Sprint team focused on mitigating staffing shortages. As co-chair of the Causal Analysis team, she is responsible for data collection and analysis for multiple forms of causal analysis. She provides expert feedback to members on their causal analysis efforts and subsequent action planning and moderates several safe tables/educational webinars related to causal analysis. Anna is active in developing causal analysis education and creation of causal analysis feedback tools and has presented this work at the national level.

Anna uses her personal experience as a rare disease parent and professional experience as a CNL and patient safety professional to inform her role as a community partner on a Patient Safety Committee for a large academic children’s hospital. Anna uses her expertise in evidence-based practice, change management and complexity science to inform her work in patient safety, and has maintained a focus on dissemination through publication and speaking engagements.

Workplace Violence in Healthcare: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Donna Zankowski, MPH, RN, FAAOHN, Occupational Health and Safety Consultant

When there is everything from verbal abuse to actual physical altercations and injuries amongst patients, family members, and healthcare providers, healthcare has become an increasingly difficult environment to work in day after day. Workplace violence (WPV) in healthcare settings is undoubtedly affecting the workplace in many negative ways, not all of them obvious. Occupational Health Nurse Consultant, Donna L. Zankowski MPH RN FAAOHN will discuss current issues concerning, and the effects of, WPV, as well as possible methods and tactics to help mitigate and prevent WPV in an effort to make healthcare workplaces safer for your patients and staff.

Donna Zankowski is an Occupational Health and Safety Consultant working with the American Nurses Association (ANA). She is a longstanding advocate for the occupational health and safety of healthcare workers at both the State and Federal Levels. Donna has worked as a Registered Nurse in acute care, homecare, leadership, and occupational health for over 39 years. As a workplace violence prevention advocate, she served as a Co-Chair for the ANA End Nurse Abuse campaign; is a member of the Maryland Nurses Association (MNA) Legislative Affairs Committee and Co-Chair for the Maryland Hospital Association and MNA Collaborative on workplace violence prevention. She served on the Joint Commission’s Standard Review Panel for workplace violence standards and is co-author for the publication: Workplace Violence Training Programs for Health Care Workers - An Analysis of Program Elements. She is a Fellow of the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses (AAOHN) and is their Legislative Affairs Advisory Chairperson. Donna has an associate degree in nursing from Rockland Community College, a bachelor’s degree in occupational health and safety from Columbia Southern University, a certificate in Occupational and Environmental Health from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and a Master of Public Health in Occupational and Environmental Health from Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

Workplace Violence in Healthcare: Let’s Not Make Things Uglier

Tanya Salgado, Partner, Labor and Employment Practice, White and Williams LLP and Laura Corvo, Counsel, Labor and Employment Practice, White and Williams LLP

While many people only think of workers compensation issues when they think of dealing with workplace violence, there are other types of legal issues employers may need to contend with in the event of workplace violence in the healthcare setting, such as negligent hiring lawsuits and OSHA violations. At the same time, the steps employers take to curtail workplace violence can have the unintended consequence of leading to exposure for employment claims, such as violation of criminal background check laws, the Americans with Disabilities Act and other employment claims. Tanya Salgado and Laura Corvo will discuss best practices to minimize workplace violence while staying compliant with the various employment laws governing the workplace.

Tanya Salgado’s practice includes employment law, education law and commercial litigation. For more than twenty years, she has defended businesses and non-profits in federal and state court in cases involving allegations of discrimination on the basis of age, race, national origin, disability and sex discrimination, as well as claims alleging sexual harassment, FMLA and wage and hour violations and wrongful discharge. Tanya also provides advice to human resources professionals and all levels of management regarding employment law compliance issues, including wage and hour laws, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination and the New Jersey Conscientious Employee Protection Act.

Clients call on Tanya to deliver tailored management training presentations on a variety of topics, such as absenteeism, documentation, equal employment opportunity issues for managers and harassment avoidance in the workplace. Tanya provides litigation avoidance counseling to managers and human resources professionals. She regularly reviews employee handbooks and drafts policies and procedures. Tanya reviews employment applications and counsels management on hiring procedures in an increasingly regulated area of personnel management.

Laura Corvo represents employers in employment litigation and counsels clients on a variety of employment-related issues. She has extensive knowledge of federal, state and local employment laws and regularly counsels employers on a host of personnel and human resource issues including, employee hiring, discipline and termination matters, reductions in force, wage and hour compliance, family and medical leave compliance, and managing accommodations for disabled employees.

Laura frequently conducts harassment and discrimination investigations and provides training to executives, managers and employees on a range of topics including anti-harassment, anti-discrimination and diversity. She also drafts and reviews employment contracts, employee handbooks and other personnel policies.

Laura represents employers in litigation involving claims of discrimination, harassment and retaliation in federal and state courts and before various administrative agencies. She is also experienced in the litigation of business tort matters involving non-compete and other restrictive covenant agreements.

Curing Blindness with Gene Therapy

Peter M.J. Quinn, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania

Patients who were considered legally blind and would have become totally blind by their 20s or 30s, have had clinically measurable improvements in sight after receiving a CRISPR based gene therapy. Dr. Peter M.J. Quinn will discuss the therapy, it’s use and how patients with a devastating degenerative retinal disease are being helped. Further, he will touch on CRISPR 3.0 and the hope for additional treatments for other genetic blinding diseases.

Dr. Peter M.J. Quinn is an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania. His main research focus lies in clinically translatable work, applying iPSC-derived ophthalmic organoid-based approaches for the understanding and treatment of retinal degenerative diseases. Currently, the Quinn Lab is developing gene-specific and gene-agnostic therapeutics for the amelioration of the phenotypic, histopathological, and molecular changes in inherited retinal disease retinal organoid models.

Dr. Quinn earned his Ph.D. at Leiden University under the tutelage of Dr. Jan Wijnholds where he completed his Doctoral thesis entitled “The Retinal Crumbs Complex: From Animal Models and Retinal Organoids to Therapy.” Subsequently, he completed his Postdoctoral Studies in IRD research under the mentorship of Drs. Stephen H. Tsang and Irene H. Maumenee at Columbia University.

Dr. Quinn is currently supported by funding from the Curing Retinal Blindness Foundation (CRBF), the Foundation Fighting Blindness Individual Investigator Research Award, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through Grant Number R01EY034952. Dr. Quinn is also the recipient of several awards including the 2020 and 2021 B. Dobli Srinivasan Award, an NIH Outstanding Scholars in Neuroscience Award, the Alnylam Prize for Scientific Excellence, and was shortlisted for the 2023 Junior Mentor of the Year Award at CUIMC.

Pennsylvania’s “FAIR” Share Act - Is it Really?

Kevin Cottone, Partner, Healthcare Practice, White and Williams LLP and Margaret MacDonald, Associate, Healthcare Practice, White and Williams LLP

Kevin Cottone and Maggie MacDonald will discuss the application of the Fair Share Act post Spencer v. Johnson in cases involving an “innocent” plaintiff. Their talk will address how the later cases have interpreted Spencer, its impact on defending cases and current attempts by the Pennsylvania General Assembly to rectify the decision.

Kevin Cottone is an accomplished trial attorney with a practice devoted to defending catastrophic injury cases. He represents medical, long-term and personal care providers in professional liability matters as well as companies in toxic tort claims. Kevin also handles many other cases ranging from product defects to general negligence and constitutional rights. He helps clients improve processes that in turn mitigate risk. Kevin is involved in all aspects of developing risk management strategies, examination of potential events, public relations, investigation of potential claims and development of defense of professional liability matters.

Kevin has tried numerous jury matters to verdict in state and federal courts in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, second chaired many other trials and successfully handled countless other matters at arbitration or mediation. He is also involved in defending class action toxic tort matters throughout the United States and been admitted pro hac vice in West Virginia and California. This experience has provided him with the ability to be both aggressive and creative in handling matters. Kevin is also extremely efficient, and clients appreciate his preparation, professionalism and common-sense approach to sometimes stressful, high-profile cases.

Margaret (Maggie) MacDonald is an Associate in the Litigation Department. Her practice focuses on representing clients in healthcare litigation matters.

While in law school, Maggie was a White & Williams summer associate and a clerk in the firm’s Healthcare practice group. During her clerkship, she conducted analysis of medical records and became familiarized with various developments in Pennsylvania medical malpractice law. She also completed internships with the Honorable C. Darnell Jones II on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the regional Honorary Consular of France, and the Chester County District Attorney’s Office.