PROFESSOR MAKHLOUF PRESENTS AT ANNUAL HEALTH LAW PROFESSORS CONFERENCE
June 2022 — Professor Medha D. Makhlouf traveled to the 45th Annual Health Law Professors Conference, which took place from June 1-3, 2022, at the Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law of Arizona State University. There, she attended her first meeting as a Board Member of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics (ASLME); facilitated discussion at the Jay Healey Teaching Session; and participated in a panel discussion focused on public health scholarship and curriculum.
After an update from the ASLME Executive Director, the Board Members engaged in a strategic planning discussion to ensure the success and stability of the organization in the future.
The Jay Healey Teaching Session is a tradition during the first day of the Health Law Professors Conference and, each year, focuses on a different topic related to teaching. The session welcomes teachers at every stage of their career and invites all participants to learn from one another. It utilizes the World Café method to stimulate meaningful conversations among small groups. This year, the session focused on bringing energy, engagement, science, and humanity to health law teaching. Professor Makhlouf served as a “Table Host,” working with the session planning team to develop discussion question prompts, modeling discussion norms during the session, and sharing key insights from her group’s discussion with all attendees.
Professor Makhlouf also served as a panelist during a session titled “Public Health is Universal: Building Better Engagement via Scholarship & Curriculum.” She focused on the benefits of teaching public health issues in an experiential setting, drawing from her experience as Director of the Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic. Professor Makhlouf explained how the Clinic’s work intersects with public health issues, described techniques for teaching students about the links between social determinants of health and social welfare systems, and shared about how the clinical setting has been a rich source of ideas for her scholarly endeavors.
Professor Medha D. Makhlouf is an Associate Professor and Founding Director of the Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic at Penn State Dickinson Law. She has a joint appointment in the Department of Public Health Sciences at Penn State College of Medicine. Professor Makhlouf’s research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of health law, immigrants’ rights, and poverty law and policy. Her recent scholarship has been published in the New York University Law Review, the California Law Review Online, and the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law & Ethics. Professor Makhlouf’s work is available online.