Structural Competency: A New Paradigm for Addressing Race and Racism in Medicine

Program Flyer

Description:

We live in an exceedingly polarized era in which politicians, political parties and many citizens often seem to talk past each other on even the most basic points about civilized society. And yet, people of all political orientations suffer. We spend untold millions of dollars on elections while at the same time we live and work in a country that has never invested less in infrastructure, or done less to correct health related inequities. Some prosper while many face a state that urban planners define as “infrastructure failure,” causing the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary to state a child’s life expectancy can be predicted by neighborhood zip codes.

Professor Metzl will explore a new educational paradigm called Structural Competency that aims to teach healthcare leaders of tomorrow ways to identify, study and intervene in these inequities. He will detail ways the “structural competency” model offers a new approach to healthcare. Structural competency is a term and concept coined by Dr. Metzl that has now become a major movement in health education.

Objectives

• Identify the historical origins of Structural Competency
• Describe the structural bases of stigmatizations of mental illness in the United States
• Discuss how the structural origins of stigma vs schizophrenia intersected with political anxieties about race
• Explain the benefits of training pre-health students in structural competency

This program is offered free of charge. Registration is required to attend. For questions, contact Estela Balderas at 312-996-1484 or estela@uic.edu.

To register, go to: http://bit.ly/southlandmay2017