GREENVILLE, S.C. - Dr. Joseph Fins, a medical ethicist who was widely quoted by the national media during the Terri Schiavo case, is one of several prominent speakers who will participate in a three-day national health conference at Furman University April 18-20.

      The conference, "Health Policy in the United States," is sponsored by Furman's Richard W. Riley Institute.  The public is invited to attend without charge.

      Fins, the chief of the Division of Medical Ethics in the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, will give the conference's closing address Wednesday, April 20 at 7:30 p.m. in the Daniel Dining Hall's Hartness Pavilion.  He will speak on "Affirming the Right to Care and Preserving the Right to Die: Reflections on Schiavo."

      Dr. Louis Sullivan, the former Secretary of Health and Human Services under President George H.W. Bush, and Dr. Robert Lawrence, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, will also give keynote addresses.

      Sullivan will open the conference Monday, April 18 at 8 p.m. on "Diversity and Health Care Delivery and Outcomes."  Lawrence will speak Tuesday, April 19 at noon on "Health as a Human Right."  Both lectures will take place in the University Center's Watkins Room.

      The conference will also include two panel discussions featuring prominent health professionals from around the country.  "The State of American Health Care" will be the topic of discussion Tuesday, April 19 at 3 p.m. in Watkins, and "Consumer Choice in the Age of Health Savings Accounts and the New Medicare Drug Benefit" will be discussed Wednesday, April 20 at 3 p.m. in the Daniel Dining Hall's Hartness Pavilion.

      For more information, contact Furman's Riley Institute at 864-294-3280 or visit the website at www.rileyinstitute.org.

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