Acute Care Medicine and Legal Aspects of End-of-Life Care

Professor of Law
Shepard Broad College of Law
Nova Southeastern University
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. She is also an affiliate faculty member at NSU's Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Allopathic Medicine.

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 four of the Academy's bi-annual Congresses: one in Amsterdam in 2013, one in Vienna in 2015, one in Prague in 2017, and one in Rome in 2019. In recognition of that work, in 2017, the International Society of Therapeutic Jurisprudence awarded her and her co-organizer the first-ever Wexler/Winick Distinguished Service Award in Prague.

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.

Vice-Chair Department of Emergency and Hospital Medicine, Research
Professor, USF Morsani College of Medicine
Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network Campus, Allentown, PA

 

Marna Rayl Greenberg, DO, MPH, is the Vice-Chair of the Department of Emergency and Hospital Medicine, Research at Lehigh Valley Health Network and Professor, USF Morsani College of Medicine. She completed her Master’s at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She has research and publication experience related to the prevention of alcohol and tobacco abuse and resolving gender differences in education and care provided in the Emergency Department.

She recently co-chaired the Academic Emergency Medicine Consensus Conference that put forth the national research agenda on Gender Specific Research in Emergency Medicine.  She is a fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians and a member of the American Osteopathic Association.

She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors such as completing her certification as a physician executive (2011), being selected as a Barness  Behnke Chap of the Gold Humanism Honor Society (2020), being inducted in the Alpha Omega Alpha honor society (2018) , and receiving the USF Theodore/Venette Ashounes-Ashford Distinguished Scholar award in 2019  (the highest award the University gives to a researcher).  She received the American College of Emergency Physicians recognition award for longevity in Emergency Medicine (2014),  the Academy of Women in Academic Emergency Medicine Momentum Award (2014),  the Unsung Hero award from the American Osteopathic Association (2014) ,  the Soroptimist International Ruby Award (2010) for Women Helping Women; the FHS Distinguished Alumna Award (2006); the Pennsylvania American College of Emergency Physicians 2005 Emergency Physician of the Year Award; the Physician Service Star Award (2004) for ER Preventive Health Initiatives; and the Koop Community Service Award (2000).