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WWW.T OUROL AW.E DU 31 Nearly one of every five dollars we Americans spend on everything we buy every year is spent on health care. I havent actually counted it but it would not be a farcical guess that at least one of every five words spoken in the American political arena in recent years has been about health care as well. The latter of those facts is perhaps as it should be Within those years healthcare has been a watershed of transformation in American social policy changing needs to rights for many of us in less than half a generation. Likewise in the law where among other changes wrought by healthcare reform government has emerged from being the dominant purchaser into being a comprehensive regulator. That too is as it might well be. Lawyers contributions both public and private find their greatest calling in times of significant social and legal change. When the rules of the game are shifting private interests face the challenges of adjustment and the opening of new opportunities and in the public sector the articulation of new rights inevitably calls for counsel for implementation and for advocacy. It was in this setting that in 2013 the Kermit Gitenstein Foundation made two of the largest grants it has made in its long history of support to health and higher education. One of the grants came to the Touro Law Center. The Foundations support created a Visiting Professorship in Health Law and Policy. It was my privilege to have been the inaugural holder of that chair during the Spring Term of 2014. Whoever may have been its incumbent the professorship allowed for an enhancement of the Law Centers curricular offerings in health law and health policy but its purpose went beyond that. A second and equally important objective of this first Gitenstein Semester was to explore from the focal point of the law school the opportunities for inter- disciplinary and cross-campus initiatives among Touros several New York venues in research and public service as well as in teaching. As I came quickly to learn it was in this sense too that the Gitenstein grant could be part of something big. Touro is an extraordinary if not unique university operating under the leadership of Dr. Alan Kadish the President of the Touro system who is a physician with both interest and experience in American healthcare policy. Within New York alone there are two Touro medical schools D.O. and M.D. operating on three different campuses plus a fourth in Nevada and a fifth in California two New York-area schools of health sciences and practice one Public Health program MPH DPH in place and another under review and three nursing programs in three population centers around New York. The Medical School in Valhalla alone has teaching programs at last count at some 28 hospitals in the tri-state area. There is a school of Pharmacy in New York City and another in California. PAs physician assistants are educated at the Bayshore campus along with PTs physical therapists and OTs occupational therapists. The Graduate School of Social Work in Manhattan includes faculty with extensive capabilities in the health care aspects of that discipline. In addition to these campus-based facilities the Law Center itself has through its faculty its alumni and supporting members of the bar significant relationships with healthcare systems and other public and private agencies working on the leading edges of the field. Evenwithnearly25yearsexperienceworking attheintersectionofLawMedicineandPublic Healthbothinpracticeandinacademic programsatotheruniversitiesIfoundthis constellationofeducationalrichesawesome awordIusewithmorerestraintthanis customaryintheargotoftheday.Ifelt liketheproverbialkidinthecandy store.Itwouldbedifficulttooverstate the potential for the Law Center in exploring integrated programs with these other schools and institutes. And of equal importance and potential the contribution the Law Center could make to the work of the others and together to the work of the whole. More than most others health law and policy is a team sport. Even more deeply among Touros diverse schools and departments there are important common denominatorsphilosophies and missions already well in place forming a common culture across what in many universities is the polyglot of the disciplines. One of the most obvious I learned almost immediately was an educational mission with a strong flavor of public service in addition to private practice active participation in public policy and deep connections to the communities in which the several schools have their homes. Some of the programmatic commonalities were truly striking. One of the Law Centers leading programs is its Institute on Aging and Longevity at the Medical College in Valhalla the Public Health program includes a Center for Long Term Care Research and Policy the Graduate School of Social Work in Manhattan includes faculty members with long experience in aging education and retiree service the School of Health Sciences in Bayshore excels in aging studies from neuropsychiatry through gerontological OT and PT to multidisciplinary LTC and numerous others. The logistics of dealing with the New York areas traffic notwithstanding the educational the research and the service potentials of joint activities among the campuses is outstanding. Some of it is already in place. What the Gitenstein grant enhanced is the Law Centers presence at the table. And so the work of the first Gitenstein Semester had two broad pathsexploring joint activities with the health sciences campuses and enhancing the Law Centers own curricular offerings in Health Law and its related fields. Adding one It is not surprising then that health law has become one of the fastest growing segments of legal practice.