The Center for Law, Health & Society at Georgia State Law is launching a new master of jurisprudence with a concentration in health law. The M.J. offers non-lawyer health professionals the opportunity to advance their careers by developing a fuller understanding of the role of law and policy in health fields.
“Over the years, we have received many requests for courses from individuals working in health fields who want to better understand the legal principles they interact with on a daily basis, but who don’t need a three-year J.D. program because they don’t intend to practice law,” said Stacie Kershner, center associate director. “To address this need, we spent the last two years creating a program that would serve these students’ needs.”
The new M.J. program has several distinct advantages over other similar programs. Georgia State Law’s health law program is nationally recognized and one of the largest in the country with over a dozen full time faculty members. Low tuition rates coupled with flexibility makes the program attractive to working professionals. The M.J. is a part-time, two-year program. All courses are online and asynchronous, so that M.J. students can complete lessons and assignments as their schedules permit.
“We wanted to create a program that was tailored to this audience and to ensure that we could translate the high-quality education we provide in the classroom into an online environment,” said center director Leslie Wolf. To do this, she and other health law faculty members worked with an instructional designer to create and teach online versions of their courses for the J.D. program. With this experience under their belts, they turned their attention to developing the program and courses specifically for M.J. students.
Courses provide an introduction to U.S. law, health care systems, and compliance, as well as coverage of specific topics such as health care liability, financing and access. Initially, electives will focus on the regulation of health care, with later expansion to include public health, human rights, health science and bioethics electives. The program concludes with a capstone project on an area of interest.
Applications are currently being accepted for the M.J. program and courses will begin in Fall 2019. Ideal candidates will have worked in a health field for three or more years. Graduate admissions exams such as the LSAT or GRE are not required. Visit law.gsu.edu/mj for more information.