Oral

The APHA Medical Care Section founders viewed social medicine as a model for bridging the divide between clinical care and public health. This session explores how social medicine can serve as a framework for collaboration between medicine and public health and between North and South. In a 2006 article discussing the future of social medicine, historian Dorothy Porter pointed to the need to integrate "the historical wisdom acquired during the evolution of the discipline into a new framework … for understanding the complex interaction of biology with the political, economic, social, and cultural relations of the twenty-first century." In accomplish this integration Dr. Porter proposed cooperation between the Anglo-American social medicine tradition and that of Latin American social medicine (LASM). Concomitantly, the Department of Family and Social Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center initiated a unique partnership with the Latin American Social Medicine Association (ALAMES) creating a bilingual, open-access, online journal (Social Medicine/Medicina Social) utilizing the Open Journal System (Simon Frazier University). This session will discuss key papers published in the journal and explore possibilities for collaboration between Latin American and North American healthcare workers.

Session Objectives: Recognize and discuss the unique experience of social medicine in combining personal medical care with a public health perspective. This objective will be accomplished by a consideration of "classic" papers in social medicine. Learn about Latin American approaches to issues raised in current public health debates in the United States. This objective will be accomplished by discussing Latin American analysis and approaches to health equity. Learn about and consider the application of new technologies (such as electronic publishing) to the development of cross-border collaboration and the ability of such technology to create a space for new voices in public health debates. This objective will be accomplished by the presentation of the development of a bilingual, eJournal of Social Medicine (www.socialmedicine.info) and the UNM Latin American Social Medicine database.

CE Credits: CME, Health Education (CHES), Nursing