Douglas Wojcieszak, founder of the Sorry Works! Coalition, is the featured Grand Rounds speaker Feb. 9, at noon in the College of Medicine auditorium. Admission is free, and the general public is invited.

Wojcieszak's older brother died as the result of medical errors, and the family experiences that followed were heartbreaking and frustrating. So much so that Wojcieszak created Sorry Works! to advocate full disclosure as a middle-ground solution to the medical malpractice crisis.

His talk is sponsored by the Center for Innovative Collaboration in Medicine and Law, based at the College of Medicine.

The center is bringing Wojcieszak in from Illinois to be one of the featured speakers at a Feb. 10 conference at the Florida State University Alumni Center. The conference -- "Making Health Law in the Sunshine State: Do (and Should) Ethics Influence Policy Making?" -- is co-sponsored by the Florida Bioethics Network.

Among the speakers at the conference are College of Medicine faculty members Kenneth Brummel-Smith, M.D., Les Beitsch, M.D., J.D., and Michael Nair-Collins, Ph.D. Also speaking is former Florida Sen. Durell Peaden Jr., who sponsored the legislation creating the College of Medicine.

The topic of Wojcieszak's Grand Rounds talk is "Admitting Medical Errors and Apologizing for Them." His family sued the hospital where his brother died in order to get answers about what actually happened. While the family received a settlement, it did not get what it believed to be a genuine apology.

Wojcieszak speaks nationwide about Sorry Works! with the goal of teaching health-care, legal and insurance professionals what he said patients and families want most after adverse events and bad outcomes: honesty, accountability, communication and a real commitment to fix problems.

"His views are somewhat controversial," said Marshall Kapp, J.D., director of the medicine/law center. "Some of the doctors in the audience may not agree with him, but it's always good to get new ideas out on the table and promote discussion about important topics.

"I think it will make for a very interesting Grand Rounds."