Einstein Student-Run Social Medicine Course
The Social Medicine Course at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine was founded by a group of 8 students in 1998 and is now in its 12th year. It remains entirely student-run.
Why a course in social medicine?
Traditionally, the preclinical science curriculum of medical school has left huge gaps in medically relevant, but “unscientific,” topics. Specifically, social factors such as economics, politics, race, and other issues related to healthcare disparities are often minimally addressed. The Social Medicine course aims to inform students about current issues in medical ethics, health economics, health policy and various other topics dealing with health and disease from a socio-economic perspective. The course is offered annually and has been very well attended in recent years. It runs in the spring semester for 12-14 weeks. Students design the curriculum each year, and the lectures are given by faculty and invited speakers. Topics covered in the course have included: the practice of social medicine, correctional health, community-based clinics, the ethics of stem cell research, medical waste, drug policy in the US, no free lunch, healthcare for people with disabilities, the politics of abortion, gun violence, elder abuse, race/ethnicity and unequal treatment, refugee health, liberation medicine, war as a public health problem, and more.
An Einstein alumnus who graduated 15 years ago wrote: “There exists at Einstein a certain ethic, a recognition that as physicians we have responsibilities both as scientists and as catalysts of social change and that these responsibilities extend well beyond our own backyard”. The course in social medicine helps to keep this “ethic” alive.
Below is the schedule for 2010. Earlier course schedules can be accessed by year: 2007, 2008, 2009.
Student-run Social Medicine Course, 2010
January 6th, 2010 will mark the beginning of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine student-run Social Medicine Course. This course is a unique opportunity for the Einstein students to cover “essentials of medical practice not taught in medical school.” This year’s list of speakers amply illustrates the connections between clinical practice and social activism.
The opening speaker will be Dr. Joia Mukerjee of Partners in Health who will discuss “Social Forces in Medicine.” This event will take place at 5:30 PM at the Riklis Auditorium and will be followed by a reception. Subsequent sessions will take place each Wednesday (with one exception) at the 5th floor Forchheimer Auditorium at 5;30PM. Dinner is provided. All events in this series will be listed at the top of our blog roll.
At last year’s course several local readers of the Social Medicine Portal dropped by. Please feel free to come, but write to Ms. Karp (see below) so that we can inform security.
The list of speakers and topics is as follows:
Jan 13 ∙ History of Social Medicine ∙ Matt Anderson, MD, MS.
Jan 20 ∙ LGBT Health and Community Organizing ∙ John-Paul Sanchez, MD, MPH
Jan 27 ∙ Race and Health in the Bronx ∙ Robert Fullilove, EdD
Feb 3 ∙ Harm Reduction in the Bronx: Dealing with the Hepatitis Epidemic among IV Drug Users ∙ Donald Davis
Feb 10 ∙ Motivational Interviewing and Nutrition in the Bronx ∙Yasmin Mossavar-Rahmani, PhD, RD, CDN
Feb 17 ∙ The Impact of Hep B on Pregnancy in the Asian American Community∙Tomoaki Kato, MD; Maya Gambarin-Gelwin, MD
Feb 24 ∙ Abortion Care in NYC∙Marji Gold, MD
Mar 3 ∙ Native American Health ∙ Donna Perry, MD *Price Center Auditorium
Mar 10 ∙ Separate and Unequal: Medical Apartheid ∙ Neil Calman, MD and Nisha Agarwal, JD
Mar 16* ∙ Liberation Medicine ∙Lanny Smith, MD, MPH, DTM&H *Tuesday at 7:15pm*
Mar 17 ∙ Reentry: Old Fears, New Hopes ∙Meekaelle Joseph
Mar 24 ∙ Street Medicine ∙ Jim Withers, MD
Apr 7 ∙ The History and Practice of Community Psychiatry ∙Thomas Betzler, MD
Apr 14 ∙ Nyaya Health: A Case Study in Developing a Healthcare NGO∙ Ryan Schwarz and Bijay Acharya, MD
Apr 21 ∙ Refugee and Asylee care: Human Rights for Torture Survivors ∙ Nicole Sirotin, MD
Apr 28 ∙ Ayurvedic Medicine ∙Bhaswati Bhattacharya, MD, PhD
May 5 ∙ The War on Women: Criminalization of Reproduction in the United States ∙Robert Roose, MD
For any questions or kosher meal requests, please contact Jessica Karp at jkarp@einstein.yu.edu.
