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Center for Health Law Policy and Bioethics

San Diego is a world leader in biotechnology and medical science, raising hard questions about how to promote or regulate these promising advances.

The Center for Health Law Policy and Bioethics brings together researchers and practitioners from local institutions including Scripps, Salk, Illumina, BIOCOM, CONNECT, UCSD, Kaiser Permanente and Rady’s Children Hospital to support research, education and policy measures of special concern to the San Diego community.

Leadership

Director

Dov Fox

Dov Fox is a Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law. The author of more than 80 scholarly articles in leading journals of law (e.g., Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal), medicine (e.g., New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association), and public health (e.g., Foreign Affairs, American Journal of Public Health), his books include "Birth Rights and Wrongs: How Medicine and Technology are Remaking Reproduction and the Law" (Oxford University Press, 2019) and "The Conscience of Care: Navigating Health in the Culture Wars" (Harvard University Press, 2025).

Faculty Members

Margaret Dalton

Margaret Dalton '94 is a Professor of Law and former Vice Dean of the law school. Her research focuses on health related disabilities that affect children and adolescents in school including behavior, ADHD and mental health. Professor Dalton was a senior healthcare administrator before becoming an attorney, and credits that experience with informing her practice representing children with disabilities. After law school, she was a special project researcher for the California Office of Women's Health and directed the first study on the intersection of domestic violence, health care and the criminal justice system. She has extensive experience in special education law and the right of all children, regardless of disability, to have a free, appropriate public education.

Stephen C. Ferruolo

Stephen C. Ferruolo is the former Dean and a Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, where he teaches in the areas of business, corporate and biotech law. Ferruolo joined USD in 2011 after a 20-year career representing life science and technology companies as a partner in a national law firm. From 2003 to 2011, he served as vice president and general counsel of BIOCOM and then as its vice chairman from 2011 to 2014. In 2011, the Daily Journal listed him as one of the "Top 25 Biotech Lawyers in California." Ferruolo is listed in Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business in the Life Sciences category and in the biotechnology law category of The Best Lawyers in America.

Rick Barton

Richard "Rick" D. Barton is an adjunct professor of law at the University of San Diego School of Law, where he teaches in the area of health care law and policy. Barton is a partner at the law firm of Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves & Savitch LLP in San Diego where he has represented health care providers for more than 25 years. He has tried more than 60 Superior Court jury trials and has argued cases before the California Court of Appeal, California Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Barton also serves as a consultant to health care providers in licensing and regulatory compliance issues.

Jonquil Whitehead

Professor Whitehead has 15 years of experience in healthcare provider defense. The majority of her practice has consisted of defending national healthcare corporations. In particular, she handles all aspects of litigation, from claims investigation through to verdict. Professor Whitehead is an expert on the evolving changes in healthcare provider defense in various jurisdictions, including application of the standard of care, the prevalence of corporate negligence claims, the changes to jurisdictional caps, the challenges to patient safety work product and statutory interpretation of elder/dependent adult abuse and neglect.

Research Fellows

Jack Smithers

The Practical Implications of Expanding the Criteria for Civil Commitment

Jack Smithers is a 2024 law school graduate who is interested in legal trends that impact the provision of healthcare. A lifelong San Diegan, he returned home after obtaining a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles. After working for several years in commercial real estate, he transitioned to law. While a law student, he worked as an extern for a senior judge in California’s Southern District, the City of Chula Vista, and a medical malpractice law firm. Prior to beginning law school, Jack obtained his EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) license and became fascinated with the difficulties facing both patients and providers, legal and otherwise. He has since worked as an interfacility transport EMT, volunteered in various healthcare settings, and plans to ultimately pursue a master’s degree in physician-assistant studies to combine his interest and educational background in both health and law. Outside of work Jack is an avid home cook and loves exploring San Diego’s trails with friends.

Cameron Connelly

The Obligation to Be Vaccinated: Utilitarianism, Contractualism, and Collective Easy Rescue

Cameron Connelly graduated from the University of San Diego School of Law with a concentration in Civil Litigation. While in law school, Connelly worked as a law clerk at the Law Offices of Thomas A. Collins, APC and served as an ambassador for the Student Bar Association. He was also a member of the USD Law Chapter of the Business Law Society.

COVID-19 Ethics, Law & Policy Research Database

Created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, CHLPB's COVID-19 Ethics, Law & Policy Research Database offers a collection of curated articles exploring the complex legal questions that arose from the pandemic.

COVID-19 Database

Focuses

Three Focus Areas at the Center for Health Law Policy and Bioethics

Synthetic biology offers great promise for a new and improved generation of genetically engineered microbes, plants and animals… To achieve this promise, the public must be assured that the U.S. regulatory agencies are able to review these products as effectively as they have over the past two decades. [We have] identified several issues and options for policymakers to update the current U.S. regulatory system for biotechnology.
―Robert Friedman, PhD, Vice President for Policy, J. Craig Venter Institute

Research

Faculty, students and research fellows at the Center for Health Law Policy & Bioethics seek to resolve challenges that confront healthcare, research and biotechnology. The Center hosts an annual symposium that brings major interdisciplinary scholars from around the world to San Diego. The open-access proceedings are videotaped and published in the Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues. Recent topics have included reproductive freedom, the governance of public health, and legal restrictions on medical care.

Policy

The Center for Health Law Policy & Bioethics promotes through conferences, lectures and workshops designed to prepare white papers on pressing matters of regional importance and beyond. Recent topics of policy papers that the Center has generated for administrative and legislatives bodies included physician burnout and shortages, healthcare access for veterans, prescription drug reform, pandemic rationing, the use of neuroscience in the courtroom, and systemic barriers to pediatric, geriatric, palliative and oncology care.

Education

“Healthcare Reform,” “Mental Health Law,” and “Telemedicine and the Law” are among the curricular offerings to teach law students alongside health disciplines like medicine, nursing, public health and social work. In “Medical Malpractice,” law students work with emergency medicine residents through the anonymized record of a medical negligence case to cover both legal topics (e.g., standard of care, informed consent, causation), and medical ones (e.g., root cause analysis, morbidity & mortality conferences, clinical protocols). Engagement between the early doctors and budding lawyers culminates in mock depositions.

Media

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