Susan Regan

Susan Regan began her career as an Assistant County Attorney in Erie County, NY where she served as counsel to the Commissioners of Health and Mental Health and worked in a progressive government setting up clinics, restructuring the mental health delivery system, and establishing one of the first staff model HMOs among other projects. After leaving government, she worked in private law practice specializing in health care law for approximately 18 years. Much of her practice as a partner in her firm was representing a large teaching hospital, providing advice on the broad range of legal issues including regulatory matters, medical staff issues, not-for-profit law and taxation, contract  and business matters. Her particular interest has been advice on patient care issues, including serving for many years as a founding member of the hospital’s ethics committee.

In 1998 she became Associate General Counsel for Visiting  Nurse Service of New York, and advised on legal issues in home care and the many VNS programs including behavioral health, pediatric nursing, hospice and managed long term care. Her particular interest was advice on ethics and patient care matters which she continues at present on a consulting basis, and as co-chair of the Hospice ethics committee.

She also chairs the VNSNY IRB, is a member of the New York Academy of Medicine IRB, and has a longstanding interest in research ethics.

Throughout her career, Ms. Regan has served in government as a member of the Public Health Council (later named the Public Health and Health Planning Council) as an appointee under four Governors (Pataki, Spitzer, Patterson and Cuomo). This body has authority to approve certificate of need applications for much of the health care delivery system in New York State, and plays an active advisory role to Commissioners of Health in policy matters. 

Ms. Regan has also taught continuously on matters of law and ethics, at SUNY Buffalo Schools of Medicine and Law, and as an Assistant Clinical Professor at Weill Cornell Medical College in the Department of Ethics, and served as faculty for ethics courses at Einstein Medical College. She now serves as a member of the Ethics Committee at CUMC, Columbia University Medical Center and Co-Chair of the VNSHealth Hospice Ethics Committee. For four years she taught a course at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health in “Governance, Law and Ethics. Since 2020

Ms. Regan is currently a Lecturer in Law and Bioethics in the Masters Program in Bioethics at the School of Professional Studies of Columbia University.