University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Course last offered: Fall 2010
Page last updated: October 4, 2010
CONTACT
Elise Schlissel
Email: selise@mail.med.upenn.edu
Julia Cohen
Email: juliacoh@mail.med.upenn.edu
Physician Advocacy and Social Medicine
Fall 2010
Physician Advocacy and Social Medicine seeks to approach medicine in a way that goes beyond caring for individual patients to addressing the underlying social, political, and economic factors that influence health. The course will provide an overview of skills and techniques physicians need to be effective advocates for structural public health change. Speakers will share their unique experiences in the field of health advocacy ranging from compassionate care of marginalized patients to engaging key decision makers in order to improve care for patients. Students will form groups to explore a potential advocacy project and carry them out putting theory to practice with the support of facilitators and classmates.
List of Speakers:
Dr. Heather McKeag
Child protection team fellow at CHOP, works with child abuse victims at CHOP
Dr. James Guevara
Associate professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics
Research interests: Tailored pediatric preventive care, Family and parenting supports, Pediatric behavioral health
Dr. Cynthia Mollen
Co-Scientific director at CHOP Policy Lab
Research interests: adolescent health, with a particular focus on utilizing the emergency department and non-primary care settings as sites for interventions related to major public health issues affecting adolescents, such as unintended teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections
Dr. Richard Cooper
Professor of Medicine, senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics
Dr. PJ Brennan
Chief Medical Officer for the Penn Health System, Infectious Disease, HUP
Clinical interests: healthcare associated infections, public reporting, tuberculosis and nosocomial infections
Dr. Paul Offit
Chief, Division of Infectious Diseases, Professor, Department of Pediatrics
Director, Vaccine Education Center, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Dr. Valerie Arkoosh
Professor of Anesthesiology, Critical Care, and Ob/Gyn at Penn
President of the National Physicians Alliance