Widener Law teams with Delaware Academy of Medicine to offer public-service program for National Health Care Decisions DayWidener’s nationally ranked Health Law Institute is joining with the Delaware Academy of Medicine on a National Health Care Decisions Day program to help Delawareans declare their end-of-life decision making preferences. The program on Wednesday, April 16 will run from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Brandywine Hundred Library at 1300 Foulk Road in Wilmington. It is free and open to the public. Organizers request anyone who plans to attend call the library in advance and register at 302.477.3150.Widener Visiting Assistant Professor Thaddeus M. Pope will begin the program and speak about advance directives and other end-of-life decisions. Organizers will have the necessary paperwork available for people who want to review and complete it after the event. Law students enrolled in the school’s Health Law Institute will be available to explain the advance-directive forms. “This program is intended to assist people of all ages, not just the elderly,” said Widener Associate Professor Andrew J. Fichter, executive director of institute programs at the law school. “People who put their preferences in writing ensure their last wishes are carried out even when circumstances prohibit them from speaking for themselves. We encourage people to join us and take the simple steps necessary to avoid the confusion and family controversies that can arise when a person becomes incapacitated and lacks a living will.”Fichter will also attend the event along with Eileen Grena, an assistant dean at Widener who directs the school’s Legal Education Institute. Grena also holds a bachelor of science degree in nursing. Delaware attorney Laurence I. Levinson, who chairs the Delaware State Bar Association Committee on Law and the Elderly, will also attend.National Health Care Decisions Day, observed on April 16, is an initiative designed, in part, to encourage people to express their wishes regarding health care. Learn more at www.nationalhealthcaredecisionsday.org/.The Delaware Academy of Medicine is a private, nonprofit organization that works to enhance community well being through education and the promotion of public health. Widener’s Health Law Institute is ranked among the nation’s top-10 programs in U.S.News &amp; World Report’s 2009 edition of America’s Best Graduate Schools. The school has maintained a near-constant presence among the elite health law programs singled out by the news magazine in recent years.