Social Medicine On Air

Toni Eyssallenne, Youri Louis, and Pierre Minn join us to discuss the larger structural, social, and historical forces which shape healthcare in Haiti. Rather than treating health disparities as isolated or purely clinical problems, this conversation situates them within Haiti’s political economy, colonial and revolutionary legacy, and ongoing global relationships around debt and power. The discus...

Dear Social Medicine On Air community! We are incredibly excited to share with you our new project, Hope is a Talent, a podcast exploring the intersection of health and Palestine. Our first three episodes can all be found here: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hope-is-a-talent We have more interviews and work lined up and are excited to share it with you. We also have NOT stopped working on...

This is the companion piece to the first episode of our new series, Hope is a Talent. This is the unedited audio journal shared to us from our colleague in northern Gaza, Amro Hamadda between the months of November 2023 through March 2024. He is an inspiration to us, and his voice is a guide. We are unendingly grateful for him taking the time to record these, record them in English, somehow figure...

Welcome to a new series we are working on -- Hope is a Talent -- in which we examine the terrifying and bloody shoreline that has formed between healthcare and Palestine. This is the edited and editorialized episode from the beautiful and compelling audio diaries shared to us from Amro Hamadda, a medical student who is currently living and surviving in Northern Gaza. We will also be uploading the...

Claudio Schuftan, MD joins us today to discuss how human rights problems today have solutions, but priorities are determined by politics. It includes a review of Salvador Allende and Latin American social medicine history, the People's Health Movement and International People's Health University, corporate capture of the World Health Organization, how decisions actually get made at the internation...

Isabel Chen and Jamar Slocum join us to discuss the history of American medical education and how its evolution has maintained injustice. They speak about prestige, research dollars, medical school rankings, race, admissions, wealth and power, health disparities, and the long shadow of the 1910 Flexner Report that laid the foundation of the current system. They also share how justice-informed move...

SMOA Survey: bit.ly/SMOAsurvey In what ways do our personal biases seep into our conversations with others? How does the structure of our language impact the reception of the information we are trying to share? In the era of digital medicine and health misinformation, how can we ensure we are communicating effectively with our patients? Anne Marie Liebel attacks questions like these in today’s epi...

SMOA Survey: bit.ly/SMOAsurvey Raj Patel and Rupa Marya join on this episode to draw the links between physical inflammation, injustice, decolonizing medicine, and the relationship between human and non-human flourishing. They discuss environmental racism, political economy and capitalism, the way that inflammation modulates social and biological health, reductive Enlightenment science, the need f...

Link to SMOA listener survey: bit.ly/SMOAsurvey For the very first time (!), we have the ENTIRE SMOA team here to address the question: “Are you exempt from social justice work when you’re off the clock?” This week’s episode is dedicated to Nath Clarke and their legacy of activism. In honor of Nath’s work, all donations to this GoFundMe will go to Southern Solidarity, a black, queer-led grassroots...

Content warning: today's episode discusses domestic violence. We also appreciate your patience with this episode as we know it is a few weeks behind our usual schedule! Thank you all for your support. Short SMOA listener story: bit.ly/smoasurvey In this episode, Anna Mullany discusses the interrelationship between domestic abuse, capitalism and political economy, patriarchy, and the teaching of so...

Link to SMOA listener survey: bit.ly/SMOAsurvey We're joined today by the incredible Agnes Binagwaho, who speaks with us about gender equity and religion before, during, and after the colonial era, the positive power of institutions like the University of Global Health Equity, the importance of teaching leadership and implementation science, and the importance of good systems in care for the most...

Hello SMOA family! We are trying something new! In addition to our bi-weekly podcast releases (which we attempt to keep evergreen and not overly current), we are going to try recording some sessions with just the SMOA team responding to the world and what is on our minds. We begin with a guided meditation, then kinda just let the ramble ramble. Join us to hear us talk about transitions (both wante...

Self-described "militant anthropologist" Professor Adrienne Pine speaks with us today about the 2009 coup in Honduras. We discuss the Washington Consensus, hybrid wars, embodied somatic solidarity, and explore the role that nurses played as agents of change and healing during the coup in 2009. Dr. Pine also shares her own journey with us, and talks about how she has balanced the extractive demands...

Hello SMOA family! We are trying something new! In addition to our bi-weekly podcast releases (which we attempt to keep evergreen and not overly current), we are going to try recording some sessions with just the SMOA team responding to the world. We begin with a guided meditation, then kinda just let the ramble ramble. Join us to hear Jonas talk about the double murder, Raghav quote a random book...

(Short Audience Survey: bit.ly/SMOAsurvey ) Jamarah Amani ( @jamarahAA ) shares how her work and activism as a midwife fights racism and injustice. She shares her own birth story and ancestors, the racial violence in the history of birth in the United States, obstetric violence, the Birth Justice Bill of Rights, health disparities, community members as healthcare designers, being able to unapologe...

On April 10th, 2021, there was a student-led symposium on the topic of Health & Liberation Theologies (HeaLTh 2021). This is the raw audio of Panel 3 of that event, on the topic of Health Systems,  Equity, & Theology, moderated by Phifer Nicholson and featuring Eddy  Eustache, Lanny Smith, and Christophe Millien.

Huge thanks to all our listeners for supporting us through a successful first season of Social Medicine On Air!  Tune in to hear Jonas, Brendan, and Raghav chat about what they learned in the last year, and what they are working on next. The team is hard at work on Season 2, with a whole new team of faces and personalities, and we absolutely cannot wait to share it all with you soon!! PLEASE...

Cole Allick joins us today to talk about tribal healthcare in the United States, how to pursue Indigenous sovereignty in health systems, and changing narratives about Indigenous life and history. He shares about the I-T-U (Indian Health Service, Tribally-run, and urban) system of healthcare delivery, Indigenous renaissance, underfunding and creativity in Indigenous healthcare systems, the implicat...

Apostolos Veizis (@AVeizis) offers a medical view from the frontlines of the ongoing refugee crisis, which as he explains, is not so much a "refugee crisis" as a crisis of logistics and lack of political will. We discuss the mental and physical health effects of life in overcrowded camps (in this case in the Greek islands), how these conditions are created and exacerbated by cruel policies of dete...

Shilpa Darivemula discusses the connection between traditional dance, medicine, trauma, and healing. She explains the way that traditional dance allows renarration of identity, how classical Indian dance can tell non-traditional stories, how pairing medicine and dance addresses inequities, the danger of instrumentalizing art, and how medical environments can be seen as places of art.  Shilpa...

Nicole Redvers (@DrNicoleRedvers) joins us to speak about Indigenous ways of knowing, the necessity for protecting Indigenous lands and ways of life, and the necessity for integration of traditional knowledge and Western science in the pursuit of human and planetary health. She discusses the need for truth-telling and reconciliation; how Indigenous communities have resisted colonialism, extraction...

Eugene Richardson ( @real_ironist ) joins us to discuss how global public health continues to use colonial frameworks for understanding health and disease, including for COVID-19 and Ebola modeling, and the need for reparations for health equity. He discusses how desocialized statistics support an unjust status quo, and how better forms of knowing can lead towards a world of justice. Eugene Richar...

Important content that didn't make it into the hour-long episode. Listen to Osama Tanous discuss the danger of "othering," the history of the idea of Zionism, the challenges of talking about Palestine, and more. 

Osama Tanous joins us to speak of the medical impacts of life in the long occupation of Palestine. We discuss what 'settler colonialism' is, the challenge of apolitical 'humanitarian' approaches, the political-medical-historical-economic connection, and the way that Palestine exemplifies the medical effects of structural violence.  Osama Tanous MD is a Palestinian pediatrician based in Haifa...

Podcast crossover episode!  Harriet and Max, hosts of the "It's Not Just In Your Head" podcast, join us today to discuss mental health, how capitalism accelerates inequality and social breakdown, and how most approaches to mental health care support neoliberal individualism. They explain the connection between personal and social liberation, our need for one another, the value and pitfalls of...