Should Doctors Prescribe Cleaner Air? Better Housing? A Dance Class?

Dr. Barry Zuckerman and his colleagues at Boston Medical Center were tired of fighting battles they couldn’t win. No amount of quality care could help their pediatric asthma patients over the long term if those children were being discharged to homes with mold and vermin. Zuckerman needed a new specialist on his team: a lawyer. In 1993, Zuckerman started what later became known as a medical-legal partnership. In an MLP, attorneys work alongside health care providers to address the social and leg...