For a complete list of course offerings in Health Care and the Law, including full descriptions and faculty who will be teaching the offerings in 2008-2009, refer to the online Curriculum Guide.
Situations involving physical health and well-being, especially the availability and quality of life-saving treatments, are compelling subjects for judges and juries. Health care represents nearly $2 trillion annually of American economic activity, much of that expense associated with innovations in diagnostic imaging, surgery, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology. Health care is also a paradigmatic regulated industry in which even the most committed "free-market" advocates acknowledge the inevitability of significant government involvement. Moreover, because health care constitutes such a large and rapidly growing portion of the American economy, difficult issues of expense, equity, and individual rights frequently attract public attention and debate.
Columbia students are introduced to issues involving health care and the law in their first year, examining individual disputes over medical care (in Torts and Contracts) as well as debates over social policy (in Foundations of the Regulatory State). In their second and third years, students may pursue a more comprehensive understanding of the legal relationships among patients, health care providers and government. Columbia offers courses and seminars dealing with the structure and regulation of health care (such as health law, food and drug law and biotechnology) and with social and ethical challengs to the health care system (such as bioethics, reproductive health, organ transplantation and managed care). Columbia's health care curriculum also provides a looking glass through which law students can better appreciate their own roles and responsibilities by examining those of another profession.
