[L-R] Thomas McLean M.D. J.D, Leigh Turner PhD, Prof. Dr. Hilko J. Meyer, and Assistant Professor and Petrie-Flom Center Co-director I. Glenn Cohen '03 participate in the panel, "Services Legal in Home and Destination Countries"

[L-R] Thomas McLean M.D. J.D, Leigh Turner PhD, Prof. Dr. Hilko J. Meyer, and Assistant Professor and Petrie-Flom Center Co-director I. Glenn Cohen ’03 participate in the panel, “Services Legal in Home and Destination Countries”

On May 20 through 21, the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics at Harvard Law School convened an international, multidisciplinary conference providing legal and ethical analysis of one of the broadest reaching developments in health care of the last 20 years: its globalization.

“The Globalization of Health Care: Legal and Ethical Challenges” brought speakers from across the globe, from academia as well as practice, to Harvard Law School. The more than 30 presenters, including HLS Assistant Professor and Petrie-Flom’s Co-director I. Glenn Cohen ’03, represented a wide array of disciplinary backgrounds, including law, philosophy, medicine, public health, government, anthropology, and geography.

View video of the panel “Medical Tourism Two: Services Illegal or Unavailable in Home Country.” (Video of all conference events is available on the Petrie-Flom Center’s website.)

The conference’s panels focused on four manifestations of globalization—medical tourism; medical migration (the physician “brain drain”); telemedicine; and pharmaceutical research and development and the developing world—and they integrated these subjects into related discussions of justice and equity. And the two-day program culminated in a public session on the global regulatory challenges to selling organs, tying together personal stories, governance challenges, and medical perspectives.

The Petrie-Flom Center plans to produce an edited volume based on the conference presentations. Information on all conference participants, including video of all presentations and panels, is currently available on the center’s website.