Topics in Neurology and the Legal and Ethical Aspects of End-of-Life Care

Kathy L. Cerminara, JD, LLM, JSD,
Professor of Law
Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law
Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Professor Kathy Cerminara bridges the medical and legal professions with her work on patients' rights in the end-of-life decision-making arena. She co-authors the nationally known treatise, The Right to Die: The Law of End-of-Life Decisionmaking, and is a reviewer for several medical and medical-legal journals. Her scholarship most recently has focused on the intersection between end-of-life care, palliative care, and health care coverage policy. At the Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad Law Center, she is a full professor.

Professor Cerminara teaches Torts; Health Policy, Bioethics & Quality of Care; Administrative Law; Civil Procedure; Bioethics; and other health-law-related courses. She also created and was the initial director of the online Master of Science in Health Law program for non-lawyers.

In 2017, she received a Scholars Award for innovative interprofessional work with the Broward County Mental Health Court.

Since 2012, she has been a member of the International Scientific Committee for the International Academy of Law & Mental Health, based in Montreal, Canada. In that position, she has co-organized the stream of therapeutic jurisprudence presentations for three of the Academy's bi-annual Congresses: one in Amsterdam in 2013, one in Vienna in 2015, and one in Prague in 2017.

In recognition of that work, the International Society of Therapeutic Jurisprudence awarded her and her co-organizer the first-ever Wexler/Winick Distinguished Service Award in Prague.

Prior to joining the College of Law faculty, Professor Cerminara taught at the University of Miami School of Law and St. Thomas University School of Law, clerked in the Western District of Pennsylvania and the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and practiced law with Reed Smith Shaw & McClay in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Professor Cerminara received her JD magna cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh and her LLM and JSD from Columbia University. She is an affiliate member of the Health Law and Tort Trial and Insurance sections of The Florida Bar, a retired member of the Pennsylvania Bar, and a member of organizations such as the American Bar Association, the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics and the American Health Lawyers Association.

Aatif M. Husain, MD
Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina.
Professor with Tenure, Department of Medicine, Division of Neurology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC.
Director, Southeast Epilepsy Center of Excellence, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Durham, NC.
Program Director, Clinical Neurophysiology and Sleep Medicine Fellowships, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC.

After completing Medical School, Dr. Husain completed a Neurology residency at the Medical College of Pennsylvania and two fellowships at Duke University Medical Center. He has been on faculty at Duke since completing his fellowships in 1997.

*Tentative course schedule, actual class times may differ.