Session 1: Exploring Our Past to Ground Our Understanding
In this session, we travel the long arc of history, from reconstruction to the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s, connecting the dots through these periods that led to the systemic inequities and racism in our modern-day healthcare system. At the same time, we will focus on the Civil Rights Movement, and on LBJ’s programs concerning the War on Poverty and the Great Society, which contributed to the creation of federally qualified community health centers (FQHCs) as a response to such inequities.
Speakers
Merlin Chowkwanyun, MPH, PhD
Merlin Chowkwanyun, MPH, PhD is a Donald H. Gemson Assistant Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. His work centers on the history of community health; environmental health regulation; racial inequality; and social movement and activism around health.
Michael Curry, Esq.
Michael Curry, Esq. is the President and CEO of the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers and the immediate past president of the Boston Branch of the NAACP (2011-2016). He has over twenty years of dedicated service to the NAACP on the city, state-area conference and national levels. He was elected to the National NAACP Board of Directors and has appointments on the National NAACP’s Executive Committee, National Board’s Advocacy & Policy Committee, and Political Action and Legislation Committee.
Reuben Moore, MBA
Reuben Moore, MBA is President and Chief Executive Officer of Minnesota Community Care. He has served within a leadership capacity across several health care organizations including UnitedHealth Group, Humana Inc., and Mayo Clinic. Reuben received his master’s degree in business administration from Hamline University and is completing a Doctorate in Education at the University of St. Thomas.
Co-Moderators
Scott Podolsky, MD
Scott Podolsky, MD is Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a primary care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. Since 2006, he has served as the director of the Center for the History of Medicine based at the Countway Medical Library. Dr. Podolsky graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College with a bachelor's degree in history and science. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Medical School.
Shawn Johnson, Medical Student, Harvard Medical School
Shawn Johnson is a fourth-year medical student at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated with his Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and Biophysics from Oregon State University in 2012. His current research is focused on implementing the national My Life, My Story narrative medicine program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, with a specific focus on studying the ability of narrative medicine to improve care for patients most at risk of experiencing stigma and bias in the healthcare system.
