Media Kit
February 2001
About the Harvard Health Caucus at the Harvard Medical School
The Harvard Health Caucus at the Harvard Medical School is a graduate student organization that aims
to include students from all of Harvard’s graduate schools in a multi-disciplinary discourse concerning
issues in health policy. The Caucus is a student "think-tank" created in 1999 by Erica Seiguer, an MDPhD (health policy) student at Harvard University. The goals of the organization are as follows:
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Provide a forum for the discussion of health policy issues with input from a variety of disciplines
(i.e. medicine, science,public health, government, law, business, etc.);
Provide students from the various Harvard schools the opportunity to interact with each other and
eminent thinkers in the field of health policy;
Publish a journal of health policy that will encourage students to put their ideas into words, and
work together to devise multidisciplinary solutions to health policy challenges.
The Policy Roundtable Series
The Policy Roundtable Series is intended to provide participants with a multidisciplinary approach to
understanding a particular area of health policy using expertise in multiple fields.
Spring 2001 Policy Roundtable Series
Pandora’s Box? The Social Implications of the Human Genome Project
The Caucus has planned a semester-long series of roundtable policy discussions on the social
implications of the Human Genome Project (HGP). Francis Collins, director of the National
Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health, will open the series on 20
February 2001 with an address entitled “The Consequences of the Human Genome Project for
Science and Society.”The Caucus will then host a focused discussion approximately every two
weeks on a particular aspect of the HGP, held at the various graduate school campuses
Why the Human Genome Project?
The government-sponsored Human Genome Project announced the completion of the rough
draft of the human genome in July 2000. The elucidation of the human genetic code will have a
profound impact on all aspects of society, including the arenas of scientific research, medicine,
law, government, ethics and theology, public health, business and education. While the
completed code may be ready, is society ready for what comes next? What comes next? Those
are the questions the Harvard Health Caucus at Harvard Medical School will be tackling—from
the doctor-patient relationship to the commercialization of the genomic code to the
communication of advances in genetics to the general population.
The Journal of the Harvard Health Caucus
Throughout the course of the Policy Roundtable Series, students from the various Harvard graduate
schools will be commissioned to write on specific issues raised in the series to be published in the Spring
2001 issue of the Journal of the Harvard Health Caucus at the Harvard Medical School.
The Journal of the Harvard Health Caucus (JHHC) is a publication dedicated to the interdisciplinary
exploration of major domestic and international health policy issues. Each issue of JHHC addresses a
set of questions developed around the topic of the Policy Roundtable Series. Through creative
explorations in a variety of fields, including medicine, science, law, journalism, business, government,
theology, economics, and public health, JCCH aims to contribute to the field of health policy in a truly
unique and forward-looking manner.
The JHHC Staff has developed submission guidelines and a rigorous peer review and editing process for
the Journal. The JHHC Staff has coordinated a research workshop with the Countway Library as well as a
writing workshop with the editors of The New England Journal of Medicine. The JHHC is currently in the
process of submitting proposals to several academic presses to assist in the widespread dissemination of
the JHHC.
Using the Web
The Caucus is employing the Internet to enrich the series of discussions on the HGP. Each policy
roundtable has a page on the Caucus website with several components including a background summary
on the topic prepared by the student organizers, postings of relevant literature, and a list of relevant
internet sites with additional information.
In addition to the pages devoted to each policy roundtable discussion, the Caucus will provide web
streaming of the events.
The HHC website will take aim at the Caucus’ goals of increased communication between disciplines in
various ways, including a searchable database where students and faculty from all the Harvard schools
can post their research interests. http://web.med.harvard.edu/healthcaucus
Support of the Caucus
The Caucus is the beneficiary of generous support from
Harvard Medical School Division of Medical Ethics
Harvard Medical School Student Council
Office of Biological and Environmental Research, US Department of Energy
Provost Fund for Student Collaboration, Harvard University
The Greenwall Foundation, New York
The Journal of Bio Law and Business
Advisory Council to the Harvard Health Caucus at HMS
The purpose of the Advisory Council is to provide the organization with important guidance in the growth
and development of the organization. Composed of individuals from academia, the non-profit sector and
industry, the Council will meet twice a year. The following individuals have accepted the invitation to be
advisors:
Marcia Angell- Former Editor in Chief, The New England Journal of Medicine.
Don Berwick- Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management, Department of Health Policy and
Management, Harvard School of Public Health; CEO, Institute for Healthcare Improvement.
Allan Brandt- Amalie Moses Kass Professor of the History of Medicine; Director, Division of Medical
Ethics, Harvard Medical School
Howard Hiatt- Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Former Dean, Harvard School of Public
Health
Haiden Huskamp- Assistant Professor of Health Economics, Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard
Medical School.
Barbara McNeil- Department Chairperson, Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School;
Ridley Watts Professor of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School
Professor of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Joe Newhouse- John D. MacArthur Professor of Health Policy and Management, HMS; KSG; HSPH.
Daniel T. Roble- Partner, Health Care Department, Ropes & Gray, Boston, MA.
Steve Schoenbaum- Senior Vice President, The Commonwealth Fund, Former President, Harvard
Pilgrim HealthCare of New England.
Kathy Swartz- Associate Professor of Health Economics, Department of Health Policy and Management,
Harvard School of Public Health.
Contact Information
For general inquiries please contact the Caucus at healthcaucus@student.hms.harvard.edu or visit our
website at http://web.med.harvard.edu.
Media inquiries should be directed to Erica Seiguer, Founder and Chair, can be reached at
erica_seiguer@student.hms.harvard.edu or 617.501.3140