Ebola in Perspective: Health, Panic, and Politics

The Center for Medicine, Health, and Society invites you to a cross-campus panel and community conversation,

Ebola in Perspective: Health, Panic, and Politics

As the Ebola virus spreads and grows into a “global threat,” information about the disease mixes with a host of larger questions and concerns.  How can we separate reasoned preparation from blind panic?  In what ways does the spread of Ebola expose connections between local practices and global networks, impact travel or interpersonal interactions, or alter categories of “us” and “them”?  How might the lessons of ethnography and history better inform our present-day response?  And what are the implications for training students and health-care workers?

Open to one and all

Panelists include:

William Schaffner, Professor of Preventive Medicine and Medicine (Infectious Diseases)

Muktar Aliyu, Associate Director for Research in the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health, Associate Professor of Health Policy

Dianna Bell, Mellon Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies

Else Sharp, MA student, Medicine, Health, and Society

Dominque Behague, Associate Professor, Medicine, Health, and Society and  Department of Anthropology

Jonathan Metzl (moderator), MHS

This event is part of the Hot Topics in Medicine, Health, and Society series.  These ongoing lectures, conferences, and events aim to foster cross-campus interdisciplinary conversations about the politics of illness and health.  For more information, see http://www.vanderbilt.edu/mhs