Addressing the social drivers of health and health justice. While public health and health care in the United States can tout many achievements over the past 100+ years, health disparities still exist and marginalized populations — including racial and ethnic minorities, women, people living with disabilities, LGBTQ, and people with low income — have not seen the same improvements due to structural, economic, political, and other barriers. Throughout her career, Charity Scott emphasized that law can be both a tool and an obstacle to improving health outcomes and achieving health equity.

A torchbearer, she defined health law to include, not just medical malpractice, but also health care regulation and transactions, public health law and the environment, bioethics, health technology, global health, and social welfare. She ensured that principles of health equity and justice were always a focus when examining any aspect of health law. For Charity “All law is health law.” This symposium was an opportunity to explore what health law can and should be going forward, building on Charity’s invaluable contributions to the field, to teaching, and to the profession.

Championing interdisciplinary and experiential teaching and practice in health care. As mentioned above, Charity Scott led efforts to develop the first medical-legal partnership in Georgia, a collaboration between health care professionals and attorneys to address health harming legal needs. One of the key aspects of the MLP is the recognition of the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to improving patient health. Educational MLPs involve law, medical and other graduate students and medical residents working collaboratively in an experiential learning environment to improve health outcomes for real clients/patients who may not have had other access to legal services.

Bioethics — Navigating the spaces between law and ethics. In health care, as in other fields, the law establishes what must be done and what is not permitted. But often the law is permissive, providing what may be done, and leaving health care professionals to determine the path forward among many choices. Charity Scott explored different frameworks for grappling with the range of complex questions that can arise in health care that are not resolved solely by the law.

Resolving conflict while preserving relationships. Fear of litigation has long made medical professionals wary of lawyers. But often despite the outcome of a medical malpractice claim, doctors and other health care workers have to return to patient care. Charity Scott considered alternative dispute resolution, such as medical apology programs, mediation, and negotiation, to be important mechanisms for resolving conflict in health care while preserving relationships, whether between providers and patients, or between employers and employees, or among colleagues.

Paradigm shifting. Charity Scott promoted challenging the status quo to identify areas for change with the ultimate goal of improving health outcomes, whether for individual patients or communities. Cracks in the system could mean a need to repair or restore but might also present a larger opportunity to redefine and redesign. Addressing overarching health system concerns requires fresh, bold ideas that could have large scale impact on health.

Encouraging wellness and mindfulness in professional identify formation for law students and lawyers. With concerns over depression, anxiety, substance use, and burnout, the legal profession needs to redefine demanding expectations on law students and lawyers. Adopting a culture of well-being at law schools and in law practice can help prevent poor mental and physical health among students and attorneys. Towards the end of her long career, Charity Scott examined the benefits of incorporating mindfulness and reflective practice as an important aspect of professional identify formation, and she established law school courses and continuing legal education programming.