The Honorable Edward F. Hennessey, Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, will address registrants of ASLM's Fourth Annual Medicolegal Evaluation of Disability program to be held Wednesday, November 19th in Boston. This year's seminar will focus on the medicolegal evaluation of disability of neurologic and psychiatric disorders and will be chaired by Doctors Gerald F. Winkler. Neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and Robert R. Mezer, noted forensic psychiatrist.

The one day program will be held in Boston's Copley Plaza Hotel and will be of interest and of practical value to the many professionals who must evaluate and rate disability in the course of their work. As with past ASLM disability seminars, this year's symposium should be of interest and value to examining physicians, attorneys, insurance adjusters and supervisors, members of the Judiciary, Workmen's Compensation Commissioners, personnel involved with Social Security, and retirement panel members.

The making of organ donor gifts when one's own body no longer needs the tissue seems a reasonable way in which one may make a gift that projects into the future.

Still, tissue shortages exist everywhere. Even England, where understanding of the intersection of health needs and distributive justice is generally viewed as more advanced than in the United States, suffers from a tissue shortage. We can only assume that the waiting lists for organs will grow unless our response to organ need changes dramatically. since our developing medical technologies will increasingly provide us with methods lor successful transplantation.

Common law has prevented individuals in the past from providing for the disposition of their own bodies. Passage of the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act in the 50 states and promulgation of similar measures throughout Canada, however has overcome that tradition. This Act permits persons to donate organs with the gift becoming effective upon death. Support for the Act was strong, and the bill was enacted state by state with unprecedented swiftness. Yet, organs are still not readily available.

The Boston University Center for Law and Health Sciences has recently completed a questionnaire survey of the country's eleven regional medical libraries (RML's). These libraries were so designated following passage of the Medical Library Assistance Act of 1965. The purpose of the program is to make the growing medical and scientific literature available to all “qualified persons” regardless of their geographical location. The statute provides, inter alia, that “qualilied persons and organizations shall be entitled to free loan services.“

The Center undertook this survey to determine what steps these libraries, which receive federal funding to help them perform as regional resources, were taking to make their collections available to those who needed to use them. All eleven libraries responded in some way to the questionnaire, although one, listed by H.E.W. as the “Midcontinental Regional Medical Library” in Omaha, Nebraska, responded that it was not a library at all, but only involved in “planning and coordinating” a library program.