Mary E. Morrissey, PhD, MPH, JD

Fellow; Program Director, Healthcare Management Certificate Program in Public Health and Palliative Care
Fordham University Graduate School of Business Administration
Global Healthcare Innovation Management Center
400 Westchester Avenue
West Harrison, NY
USA 10604
Email: mamorrissey@fordham.edu

Biographical Sketch: Dr. Mary Beth Morrissey is a Postdoctoral Research Associate for the Hartford Risk and Resilience Project funded by Hartford Foundation and the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) that examines older adults' legal rights, health and well-being in the criminal justice system. Dr. Morrissey holds her Bachelor of Arts in English from Fordham College; her Juris Doctorate from the Fordham University School of Law; her Master of Public Health from the New York Medical College School of Public Health; and her Ph.D. from the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service. Dr. Morrissey's research interests are devoted to health and mental health policy, health care decision making, pain and suffering, and palliative and end-of-life care, and was a May 2011 recipient of the Fordham University Langenfeld Research Award for her dissertation study on suffering and decision making among seriously ill elderly women. Dr. Morrissey teaches social policy at the Hunter College School of Social Work where she is a Faculty Fellow at the Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging & Longevity. She is also a guest lecturer at Pace Law School. Dr. Morrissey has over 20 years of experience as a practicing attorney, and concentrates her practice to the areas of health law and policy, gerontological social work research and ethics. She lectures and has published on these issues, and provides educational training to attorneys and interdisciplinary professionals. Dr. Morrissey is Chair of the Policy Committee of the Aging and Public Health Section of the American Public Health Association, and is a member of the National POLST Paradigm Research Committee. In addition, she is active in legislative advocacy and coalition-building at the state and grassroots levels and serves as President of the Westchester End-of-Life Coalition. She is a founder and Chair of the Collaborative for Palliative Care of Westchester and the New York State Southern Region. Dr. Morrissey co-chairs the Elder/Health Law Committee of the Westchester Women's Bar Association and the Health Law Committee of the Women's Bar Association of the State of New York. For more information about Dr. Morrissey’s projects visit the following websites at: cpcwestchester.org; westchesterendoflife.org; https://sites.google.com/site/betheevidenceproject.

Papers:
4181.0 Policy implementation in hospice and palliative care: An examination of hospice policy, decision making and design in context of state policy on end-of-life care 4181.0 Variation in state policy on end-of-life care: Hospice policy and decision making – balancing fidelity to hospice ethics of care, patient autonomy, and interpretations of meaning in experiences of serious illness and dying