Peter W. Carmel, a pediatric neurosurgeon, is professor and chairman of the Department of Neurological Surgery and co-medical director of the Neurological Institute of New Jersey. Dr. Carmel was elected to the American Medical Association Board of Trustees in June 2002, and has served as a member of the AMA’s House of Delegates for 17 years. Dr. Carmel has served in numerous positions in organized neurosurgery, and has held a number of significant offices in both the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. As a faculty member in the Department of Neurosurgery at Columbia University for 25 years, Dr. Carmel was the founding chief of the Division of Pediatric Neurosurgery and a professor of Neurological Surgery.

Alain C. Enthoven is the Marriner S. Eccles Professor of Public and Private Management (Emeritus) in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He holds degrees in economics from Stanford, Oxford and MIT. The positions he has held include economist with the RAND Corporation, assistant secretary of defense, and president of Litton Medical Products. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a consultant to Kaiser Permanente and former chairman of the Health Benefits Advisory Council for CalPERS and Stanford’s University Committee on Faculty/Staff Benefits.

Robert W. Hahn is director of the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and a research associate at Harvard University. Previously, he served as a senior staff member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. Mr. Hahn frequently contributes to general-interest periodicals and leading scholarly journals, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, American Economic Review, and Yale Law Journal. Most recently, he is the author of Reviving Regulatory Reform: A Global Perspective (AEI-Brookings Joint Center, 2000). In addition, Mr. Hahn is cofounder of the Community Preparatory School––an inner-city middle school in Providence, Rhode Island, that provides opportunities for disadvantaged youth to achieve their full potential.

Charles B. Hammond is the president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the E. C. Hamblen Professor and Chairman Emeritus of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Duke University Medical Center. His major interests and efforts have been concerned with reproductive endocrinology and infertility and in the area of placental malignancy, choriocarcinoma, and related diseases. Dr. Hammond serves on the editorial boards of five major journals. He is also author or coauthor of over 300 articles and chapters relating to educational programs in obstetrics and gynecology, medical education and administration, and in scientific research in trophoblastic malignancy, menopause and reproductive endocrinology and infertility.

Philip K. Howard is founder and chairman of Common Good, vice-chairman of Covington & Burling and the author of The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America (Random House, 1995) and The Collapse of the Common Good: How America’s Lawsuit Culture Undermines Our Freedom (Ballantine, 2002). Mr. Howard has advised leaders of both parties on reform initiatives. He was special advisor to the Securities and Exchange Commission on regulatory simplification, worked on environmental and management reforms with Vice President Al Gore’s reinventing government program, advised the Republican leadership on regulatory reform, and worked on overhauling civil service and other bureaucratic institutions with several governors.

Daniel P. Kessler is an associate professor at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He holds a JD from Stanford Law School and a PhD in economics from MIT. His research interests include empirical investigation of the effects of legal and regulatory policy on economic decisionmaking, particularly in the health care field. His work has been featured in economics journals, law reviews, and general-interest publications such as the Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek. His recent work investigates the impact of for-profit hospitals on medical treatment decisions, health care costs, and patient health outcomes. He is also researching the effects of health care report cards on the cost and quality of care.

Robert E. Litan is co-director of the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, vice president and director of the Economic Studies Program and Cabot Family Chair in Economics at the Brookings Institution, co-chairman of the Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee, and co-editor of the Brookings-Wharton Papers on Financial Services and Emerging Markets Finance. Formerly, he was associate director of the Office of Management and Budget, deputy assistant attorney general in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, and a regulatory specialist for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. Mr. Litan is the author or coauthor of numerous books and articles on financial institutions, international trade, and regulatory issues.

Mark B. McClellan is the incoming commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and is currently a member of the Council of Economic Advisers. Before joining the CEA, he was associate professor of economics at Stanford University, associate professor of medicine at Stanford Medical School, a practicing internist, and director of the Program on Health Outcomes Research at Stanford University. His research studies have addressed measuring and improving the quality of health care, the economic and policy factors influencing medical treatment decisions, technological change in health care and its consequences for health and medical expenditures, uninsurance, and the relationship between health and economic well-being.

Michelle Mello is assistant professor of health policy and law in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health. Her research focuses on issues at the intersection of health law, ethics, and public policy. Among her current projects are an investigation of the impact of the Pennsylvania medical malpractice crisis on physician practice decisions and patient access to care; a study of factors contributing to medical errors in the hospital; an analysis of who bears the costs of hospital adverse events; and a study of legal relationships between academic investigators and industry sponsors of clinical trials.

Jeffrey O'Connell is the Samuel H. McCoy, II Professor of Law at the University of Virginia, specializing in accident and insurance law. He is the co-author of the principal work which proposed no-fault auto insurance. Mr. O’Connell has been awarded a Convocation Medal for his published research on reform of medical malpractice law by the American College of Cardiology. In December 1999, the publication The American Lawyer listed O’Connell as likely to be viewed as one of "The Lawyers of the Century" based on his work reforming tort law. Mr. O’Connell is the author or co-author of twelve books dealing with accident law and has also written extensively for numerous popular, legal, and insurance journals.

Donald J. Palmisano, general and vascular surgeon, is president-elect of the American Medical Association and a graduate of Tulane Medical School and Loyola Law School. Dr. Palmisano has practiced in New Orleans for over 30 years and serves on the boards of The National Patient Safety Foundation, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, and is clinical professor of surgery and medical jurisprudence at Tulane. He played a key role in passage of the Louisiana Medical Malpractice Act of 1975 that capped damages. For AMA, he has testified numerous times before Congress and appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, CNN, The Capitol Gang, and Nightline discussing medical liability reform, privacy, patient safety, and antitrust reform.

William G. Plested, III, a thoracic and cardiovascular surgeon, is the chair-elect of the Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association. Dr. Plested has been in private practice since 1970 and has been an AMA member since 1972. Dr. Plested has held positions of leadership throughout his medical career, including president of the California Medical Association (CMA) and all major offices within the Los Angeles County Medical Association and the CMA. Dr. Plested is passionate in defense of patient’s autonomy and a powerful advocate for physician’s ability to make independent medical judgments. At a time when pressures are at work to destroy physicians’ interconnection with one another and threaten physicians’ ability to advocate for their patients, Dr. Plested is undaunted by the odds.

David M. Studdert is assistant professor of law and public health at the Harvard School of Public Health where he teaches courses in health law and medical ethics. Before joining the School of Public Health’s faculty, he was a policy analyst at RAND, an advisor to the Minister for Health in Australia, and in legal practice. Mr. Studdert’s research focuses on legal and regulatory issues in the health care sector, and he is currently involved in projects investigating medical injury, coverage appeals in managed care organizations, and informed consent.