Glen Cheng is the first student to complete a joint degree program in law and medicine offered by Rutgers and UMDNJ
Since fifth grade, Glen Cheng knew he wanted to be a doctor.
Certain enough about his career path to enroll in the combined B.S./M.D. program between The College of New Jersey and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-New Jersey Medical School, Cheng completed his undergraduate requirements in three years, graduating magna cum laude with a B.S in biology and a minor in philosophy.
It was as a student at New Jersey Medical School that Cheng developed an interest in public policy issues and for the first time thought about pursuing a joint M.D./J.D. program. “I have also,” he adds, “had a long interest in philosophy and felt that a law degree would help me to think analytically and theoretically about the problems that I wanted to help tackle."
The Rutgers School of Law–Newark/UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School six-year program in law and medicine is one of the few such joint degree programs in the country, so Cheng was ideally situated to begin law school. Concerned about his already substantial medical school debt, Cheng was helped in his decision by the award of a merit scholarship. At that point, he recalls, “I knew that I could not pass up this great opportunity to study law.”
Cheng, first student to have completed the Rutgers/UMDNJ-NJMS program, says the demands of both schools were rigorous. "I lost a fair bit of sleep,” he admits. Most challenging, he says, "was switching my mode of thinking from medicine to law each year.” And most rewarding: To be able to study in diverse disciplines and to really enjoy the full experience. I feel that I have been given a lot by my professors, and I appreciated the unique opportunities from both schools.”
Cheng has been an editor of the Rutgers Law Review and a member of the Intellectual Property Law Society. Last summer he worked in the pharmaceutical patent litigation practice of Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper & Scinto. He is the author of the 2008 Rutgers Law Review note “Caring for New Jersey’s Children with Autism: A Multifaceted Struggle for Parity” and the 2009 Environmental Claims Journal article “Legislation Without Implementation: Mandatory Lead Paint Hazard Inspection and Remediation of Housing Rented in New Jersey.”
As a medical student, Cheng was a co-author of several articles published in peer-reviewed medical journals. He spent one summer at the National Institutes of Health studying the health care benefits of low-income employees, and another in Yunnan Province with the China Primary Health Care Foundation. Working in remote mountain villages without running water and electricity, he trained farmers in basic medical diagnosis, public health measures, and preventive medicine so the villages could become self-sufficient in improving local health conditions.
Back at Rutgers Law School last fall and taking Clinical Professor John Kettle’s copyright and trademark class, Cheng learned about a scholarship and publishing opportunity offered by the Entertainment, Arts & Sports Law Section of the New York State Bar Association. He also learned that the current copyright law scheme is unable to provide protection to many artists who create works of modern art.
Cheng chose as his writing competition topic “Copyright and Modern Art: A Readymade Solution.” “I have always had an interest in the philosophy of art, particularly the question of how to define an artwork (as opposed to a ‘mere’ object)," he says. "A major reason many modern artworks are not copyrightable is because they have a useful function other than to be displayed as artworks.
In his paper, he argues that all art should be copyrightable, since the federal copyright statute was designed to protect works of art. “But to be fair to all parties,” he says, “my paper proposes that an exception be added to the Copyright Act to allow for manufacturers of useful articles, such as snow shovels, to continue to manufacture and sell their articles without fear of infringing a copyrighted shovel-as-artwork that looks identical to their own.” As a winner of the 2010 Phil Cowan Memorial/BMI Scholarship competition, the paper will be published this spring in the EASL Journal.
Cheng says he's grateful for the opportunity to study both law and medicine. "I intend to use my medical background throughout my legal career," he says. "I’ve heard a lot of lawyers say that law school teaches you to think within a completely new framework, and it’s true. I doubt that I would be able to appreciate policy concerns, ethical considerations, and principles of justice as much had I not come to law school.”
Following his May 2011 graduation, Cheng will clerk for the Honorable Robert B. Kugler, U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.