Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy is pleased to announce the 4th Congressional District's participation in the 22nd Annual Congressional High School Arts Competition - "An Artistic Discovery."

The Award of Excellence winner will receive a $7,000 Adelphi Art Scholarship and the student's work will be displayed in the US Capitol for one year. The second prize Award of Merit winner will receive a $5,000 scholarship and the third prize Award of Achievement winner will receive a $3,000 scholarship.

McCarthy's office will be accepting artwork from April 21 - May 2. This year's art competition will take place at Adelphi University from May 25 - 30, with the reception announcing the winners on Wednesday, May 28, from 5 - 7 p.m. at the Art Gallery in Adelphi's Ruth Harley Center.

Here are some of the details for submission:

* The contest is open to all high school aged students who reside in the 4th Congressional District. We encourage the lower classmen to participate as the upper classmen have in most cases made their choice for undergraduate study.

* Each school may submit up to three pieces of artwork for consideration.

* Student artwork must be an original concept, not reproduced from an existing photo, painting or other such work. It must be two dimensional, no larger than 32" x 32" framed and no more than 4 inches in depth.

* The entry must fall into one of the following categories: paintings (oil, watercolor, acrylic, etc.), drawings, collages (must be two-dimensional), prints, mixed media, computer graphics and photography.

If you are interested in submitting artwork for consideration, please contact your high school's art department chair. For further questions, you may call Keisha Miller in McCarthy's Garden City office at 739-3008.

As a nurse, I understand all too well the high cost of malpractice insurance and recognize the crisis this is creating in our healthcare system, particularly in areas of high-risk procedures. I want a solution to fix this problem, but the Republican leadership's bill is not the solution.

Unfortunately, the bill being debated on the floor will only make this crisis worse. It exempts HMOs, pharmaceutical companies and the FDA from punitive damage awards. This means that HMOs will continue to make medical decisions for patients based on what's best for their bottom line and not what is best for the patients they serve.

I am deeply troubled that the Republican leadership did not allow for any member of Congress to offer an amendment to improve this legislation. If I had been allowed to offer an amendment, I would have proposed the following changes:

* Reduce frivolous law suits by limiting the amount of time during which a patient can file a medical malpractice action to no later than three years from the date of injury, or three years from the date the patient discovers the injury;

* Ensure that medical malpractice insurance companies lower their premiums by developing and implement a plan to annually dedicate at least 50 percent of those savings to reduce the insurance premiums that medical professionals pay;

* And provide grants or contracts to geographic areas that have a shortage of one or more types of health providers as a result of dramatic increases in malpractice insurance premiums.

Unfortunately, the legislation offered is not real and effective medical malpractice reform, but a bill that protects HMOs and insurance companies and endangers victims of medical mistakes. For these reasons, I voted against the legislation.