Principal Investigator
Prof. Tanalis Padilla, History
Fund:
Alumni Class Funds
Funding Period:
AY2025
Department/Lab/Center:
History
Through the lens of Latin America, this course offers students an opportunity to explore social medicine, a field that understands health and illness through structural determinants such as poverty, underdevelopment, and socio-demographic inequality. By studying Latin America’s national initiatives for social medicine; historical figures trained as doctors but turned presidents or revolutionaries; South-South cooperation in the field of medicine; and Indigenous practices to care and wellbeing, students will learn about global traditions of medicine. Not only does this course bring to the fore expansive approaches to healthcare, it challenges students to think critically and internationally about the perils and possibilities of our own medical system and the diverse population it serves.