Over three days in January, hundreds of the brightest and most influential people in American health care converged on UM’s Coral Gables campus for the Global Business Forum on “The Business of Health Care: Defining the Future.”

From the opening keynote session through thought-provoking panels ranging from health care ethics to the role of nursing, attendees had the opportunity to hear the perspectives of such notables as Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services; UM President Donna E. Shalala, a former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services; Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D., commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; Jeffrey R. Immelt, chairman and CEO of General Electric; and Miller School Dean Pascal J. Goldschmidt, M.D., who moderated “Managing Conflict of Interest: The Patient-Centric View.”

Dean Pascal J. Goldschmidt, M.D., far left, moderated a panel with, from left, Richard S. Stack, of Synecor LLC; William A. Hawkins, of Medtronic Inc.; Jon R. Cohen, M.D., of Quest Diagnostics; Peter van der Goes Jr., of Goldman Sachs; Thomas P. Stossel, M.D., of Harvard Medical School; and William W. O’Neill, M.D., of the Miller School.

“We agree that it is critical for transparency’s sake and for patient protection’s sake to report and manage all relationships with industry,’’ Goldschmidt said at the opening of his plenary session. “However, we do not believe that all interactions should be proscribed between industry and doctors.”

In addition to Goldschmidt and William W. O’Neill, M.D., executive dean for clinical affairs at the Miller School, who moderated “Coping with a New Landscape of FDA Regulations: The Patient-Centric View,” members of the UHealth-sponsored panels were: William A. Hawkins, CEO of Medtronic Inc.; Jon R. Cohen, M.D., senior vice president and chief medical officer of Quest Diagnostics; Peter van der Goes Jr., managing director of health care banking for Goldman Sachs; Thomas P. Stossel, M.D., director of the translational medicine division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School; and Richard S. Stack, M.D., managing general partner of Synecor LLC, a business generator and financial incubator of new medical device companies.