National health law award presented to University of Tulsa College

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Jul 10, 2008

Heather "Lane" Wood, valedictorian of the December 2007 graduating class of the University of Tulsa College of Law, has been selected to receive the Roscoe Pound Civil Justice Institute's Elaine Osborne Jacobson Award as the nation's top female student in health law.

Wood will receive a $3,000 scholarship and an all-expense paid trip to the Association of Trial Lawyers of America annual meeting in Philadelphia.

It is the third time in the past decade that a TU College of Law student has been presented the national award. Previous winners were Donna DeSimone in 1998 and Corrine O'Day in 2003. Each recipient wrote seminar papers for TU's health law program under the guidance of Professor Marguerite Chapman, director of the program.

Wood's paper entitled A Young Vaccine for Young Girls: Should the Human Papillomavirus Vaccination Be Mandatory for Public School Attendance? was published in the American Bar Association's The Health Lawyer.

She also researched and drafted a 36-page consumer guide, Your Right to Decide: Oklahoma's Advance Directive and Other Health Care Planning Tools published in November in conjunction with Attorney General Drew Edmondson's office and St. John Medical Center in Tulsa.

Wood is now an associate member practicing health law for the Dallas firm of Haynes and Boone.