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(Standing on left) Thomas Nasca, M.D., Dean, Jefferson Medical College, asks U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, about his plans for medical liability reform during forum Monday, May 17. Sen. Santorum met this week with Thomas Jefferson University Hospital health professionals and Jefferson Medical College students to discuss the spiraling costs of medical liability insurance and its impact on Pennsylvania.

DATE: Monday, May 17, 2004

TIME: 9:15 a.m.

LOCATION: Bluemle Life Sciences Building
Rm. 101
233 S. 10th St. (at 10th and Locust sts.)
Philadelphia

EVENT: U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, will meet with dozens of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital health professionals and Jefferson Medical College students to discuss the spiraling costs of medical liability insurance and its impact on Pennsylvania.

In addition, Jefferson orthopaedic surgery fellow Robert P. Lyons, M.D., of Southampton, Pa., will also talk to the assembled group about how the medical liability issue could threaten his ability to establish a practice in this state.

BACKGROUND: Within the last three years, rising medical liability insurance rates have forced many Pennsylvania-based physicians to leave their practices, take early retirement or scale back services because of malpractice insurance. Pennsylvania is one of 19 states currently identified as "in crisis" by the American Medical Association.

This trend has not escaped the attention of Sen. Santorum who has pushed for meaningful medical liability reform that will impact patient access to quality health care on the national, state and local level.

Dr. Lyons, who focuses his areas of clinical interest in shoulder and elbow reconstruction and hand surgery, received his doctor of medicine degree in 1990 from the Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia and bachelor’s degree in biology from LaSalle University in 1986, graduating from LaSalle cum laude with general college honors from the honors program curriculum. Dr. Lyons served as chief of the section of orthopaedic surgery at the Walson Air Force Hospital at Fort Dix in Southern New Jersey, where he received the U.S. Air Force’s Commendation and Medal for Achievements for his work.

Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, with a medical staff of 868, has major programs for heart disease, cancer treatment, neuroscience, high-risk childbirth, genetics, radiology, orthopaedics, digestive diseases and many other areas of medicine and surgery. It is one of only a few hospitals in the United States that is both a Level I Trauma Center and a federally designated regional spinal cord injury center. Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center is designated as a clinical cancer center by the National Cancer Institute.

U.S.News and World Report has consistently ranked many of Jefferson's services as among the best in the nation. These include rehabilitation, cardiology/cardiac surgery, orthopaedics, digestive disorders (gastroenterology), geriatrics, gynecology, neurology and neurosurgery, which are both based at Jefferson Hospital for Neuroscience, otolaryngology - head and neck surgery, and urology.