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Structural Competency: A New Paradigm for Addressing Race and Racisms in Medicine – Chicago, IL

UIC College of Pharmacy, Auditorium Room 134-2 833 S. Wood Street, Chicago, IL, United States

The "cultural competency" approach and other medical models that emphasize cross-cultural understanding of patients are limited. Many health-related factors previously attributed to culture or ethnicity in interactions between doctors and patients also represent the downstream consequences of decisions about larger structural contexts, such as impoverished transit or food delivery systems, oppressive zoning decisions, or the pernicious effects of institutional racisms. This talk will focus on how the "structural competency" model and movement offers a new paradigm and approach to healthcare that can address the biological, socioeconomic, and racial impacts of upstream decisions on structural factors such as expanding health and wealth disparities.

Free

Changing the Terms of Debate about Gun Violence: Mental Illness, Mass Shootings, and the Politics of American Firearms

Texas A&M University - MSC Ballroom, Room 2300E 275 Joe Routt Boulevard, Room 2300E, College Station, TX, United States

Four assumptions frequently arise in the aftermath of mass shootings in the United States: (1) that mental illness causes gun violence, (2) that psychiatric diagnosis can predict gun crime, (3) that shootings represent the deranged acts of mentally ill loners, and (4) that gun control “won’t prevent” such incidents. Professor Metzl will address how assumptions about gun violence incorrectly link to stereotypes of mental illness and race in the United States. These issues become obscured when mass shootings come to stand in for all gun crime, and when “mentally ill” ceases to be a medical designation and becomes a sign of violent threat. Professor Metzl will also discuss how and why gun violence is a pertinent topic for the growing field of Health Humanities.

Free

Teaching Social Justice and Health Equity in an Age of Polarization

The Bentley Reserve, Second Floor Lounge 400 Sansome Street Entrance, San Francisco, CA, United States

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.

$25