San Antonio (Sept. 18, 2007) – Jason H. T. Karlawish, M.D., a nationally known expert on assessing mental capacity in senior adults, will deliver the keynote address Friday, Sept. 28, at the “Medico-Legal Conference on Aging: Competence and Capacity” to be held in San Antonio.
The conference, geared for health care and legal professionals, is sponsored by SeniorBridge Family Companies Inc. in coordination with the South Texas Geriatric Education Center at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and the Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center at the South Texas Veterans Health Care System.
The daylong event will be held at the La Quinta Conference Center, 4431 Horizon Hill Blvd. Registration has been extended. For a registration form, an agenda of speakers and times, and a complete conference brochure in PDF, visit www.sagrecc.org.
Continuing education units are available. Questions about these units may be directed to Kathleen Kirk at (210) 567-7410.
Dr. Karlawish is associate professor of medicine and senior fellow at the Institute on Aging of The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He is a faculty member for a number of courses focusing on research ethics and medical decision making, and is an attending physician at the Memory Disorders Clinic of Penn’s Alzheimer’s Disease Center. Dementia is one of his research interests.
Other speakers will discuss informed consent, ethical issues in geriatrics, guardianship and alternatives, pain management legislation and end-of-life issues. The Honorable Polly Jackson Spencer, judge of Bexar County Probate Court No. 1, will speak on “Fraud and Abuse.”
A closing panel discussion will center on case studies on medico-legal issues in aging.
The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is the leading research institution in South Texas and one of the major health sciences universities in the world. With an operating budget of $536 million, the Health Science Center is the chief catalyst for the $14.3 billion biosciences and health care sector in San Antonio’s economy. The Health Science Center has had an estimated $35 billion impact on the region since inception and has expanded to six campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. More than 22,000 graduates (physicians, dentists, nurses, scientists and allied health professionals) serve in their fields, including many in Texas. Health Science Center faculty are international leaders in cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, aging, stroke prevention, kidney disease, orthopaedics, research imaging, transplant surgery, psychiatry and clinical neurosciences, pain management, genetics, nursing, allied health, dentistry and many other fields.