57 RI Bar J., No. 6, Pg 37. Holistic and Collaborative Approaches to Practicing Law and Medicine.

• Author: Elizabeth Tobin-Tyler, Esq., Director of Public Service and Community Partnerships at Roger Williams University School of Law

Rhode Island Bar Journal

Volume 57.

57 RI Bar J., No. 6, Pg 37.

Holistic and Collaborative Approaches to Practicing Law and Medicine

Rhode Island Bar Journal57 RI Bar J., No. 6, Pg 37May/June 2009Holistic and Collaborative Approaches to Practicing Law and MedicineElizabeth Tobin-Tyler, Esq., Director of Public Service and Community Partnerships at Roger Williams University School of LawIn 1993, Dr. Barry Zuckerman, Chief of Pediatrics at Boston Medical Center, piloted a novel idea - developing the Family Advocacy Program, a legal practice within the hospital's pediatric unit, addressing social factors impacting low-income families' children's health. Frustrated by social conditions that pediatricians alone could not address: unsafe housing conditions leading to lead paint poisoning, asthma and injury; lack of sustainable income affecting childhood nutrition; and poor access to educational and social services for children with special needs, just to name a few, Zuckerman hired a lawyer to collaborate with medical staff and fight for poor families' legal rights. His idea of the medical-legal partnership has taken off nationally. There are now over eighty medical-legal partnerships in existence in the U.S. In August 2007, the Health Law Section of the American Bar Association (ABA) recommended the Association's encouragement of the medical-legal partnership model.

One of the first such partnerships was started in Rhode Island. The Rhode Island Medical-Legal Partnership for Children (RIMLPC) was launched in 2002 as a partnership of Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Hasbro Children's Hospital, Rhode Island Legal Services, and Roger Williams University School of Law. RIMLPC has four components: 1) free legal services for low-income families referred by their pediatric health care providers; 2) training for doctors, nurses, social workers and other health care providers on how to identify common legal issues encountered in medical settings; 3) training for the next generation of doctors and lawyers through an interdisciplinary course for law and medical students and supervised internship experiences; and 4) advocacy on systemic and policy issues affecting families identified through case work at RIMLPC.

Free Legal Services for Low-Income Families in a Health Care Setting

Hasbro Children's Hospital is the...