UNC Social Medicine
The Department of Social Medicine is an academic unit within the School of Medicine at UNC-Chapel Hill committed to the promotion and provision of multidisciplinary education, leadership, service, research, and scholarship at the intersection of medicine and society. This includes focus on the social conditions and characteristics of patients and populations; causes of illness and contexts of medical care; the ethical and social contexts of biomedical clinical and research professionals and institutions; and questions of allocation, organization and financing of health resources including health law and policy.
Faculty from clinical medicine, public health, the social sciences, and the humanities collaborate to teach core curriculum to medical students, develop innovative research and scholarly endeavors, and connect the School of Medicine with the wider University campus. Through our teaching, research, and service we address social dimensions of health and health care in North Carolina and around the globe.
Three affiliated interdisciplinary research centers deepen and expand the Department’s focus in bioethics, health disparities, and ethical, legal, and social implications of genomics: The Center for Bioethics, the Center for Health Equity Research, and the Center for Genomics and Society. Social Medicine is a bridge between medicine and public health, public policy, law, the arts and humanities, social sciences disciplines, and communities across the state.
- What's New at UNC Social Medicine
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2014 SpringRobert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars ScholarConnect Spring 2014 Newsletter is out.
see the newsletter »
2014 MayThe Special Issue in AIDS and Behavior was Volume 18, Issue 2, Feb 2014. Contextualizing HIV/STI in China: Interdisciplinary Studies in a South China City. Guest editor is our Gail Henderson.
see the issue »
2014 April
At the 2014 UNC Teaching Awards Banquet, Sue Estroff received the Distinguished Teaching Award for Post-Baccalaureate Instruction. Dr. Estroff is described as inspiring, insightful, supportive, engaging, honest, and committed to challenging her students. There were substantial comments on how she has the uncanny ability to deconstruct complex issues and to simplify and connect and inspire students. One student noted, "she has a gift of making you think about things that are commonly shared but often defined differently when deeply explored. Sue is provocative in the best ways." Her colleagues were effusive in their praise. One commented that she is "a force of nature ... absolutely fearless and willing to say what others won't say," while another stated that "she pushes for the underdog issues and challenges individuals to think about commonly held beliefs, assumptions, and things that often go unexamined".
2014 February
The Alan W. Cross Social Medicine Paper Award is now accepting submissions from medical students. Scholarly papers, essays, fiction, poetry, as well as non-print works, are welcome. Deadline for submission is May 25, 2014. For more information contact Rosa Swanson.
read the flyer »
2014 FebruaryAn interview with Giselle Corbie-Smith is featured on the UNC School of Medicine home page: Research with the People: Giselle Corbie-Smith combines the knowledge of a physician, inquisitiveness of a scientist, and outlook of an activist to ensure that research touches the lives of North Carolinians.
see the SOM home page »
read the interview »
2013 November 7This year, Dan Nelson has been selected to receive one of the organization’s highest awards – the ARENA Legacy Award (ALA). The ALA was developed to recognize individuals who have made an exemplary contribution to the mission and goals of PRIM&R by significantly promoting the ethical conduct of research through mentoring, teaching, and leadership. (As you probably know/have experienced, Dan excels in all three areas) In addition, the ALA honors the living legacy created by the Applied Research Ethics National Association (ARENA). Dan’s helped build ARENA, and that along with his other contributions to the field of research ethics, IRB work, and the furthering of PRIM&R’s mission are truly great.
read more »
2013 October 4 & 5The 2013 Merrimon Lecture and Health Justice Conference is coming October 4th and 5th. Registration for the conference is free. The Merrimon Lecture requires no registration. Both are open to the public. details »
2013 September 6 & 7
To celebrate the institution of a new interdisciplinary MA track in Literature, Medicine and Culture, the University community is invited to Conversations on Medicine and Interdisciplinary Studies: A Colloquium. With keynote address by Prof. Brian Hurwitz (King’s College-London) on “A Rationale for the Medical Humanities”. more information »
2013
Stuart Rennie has received NIH funding for two bioethics grants. Initially launched in 2004 with the support of the Fogarty International Center, the project ‘Building Bioethics Capacity and Justice in Health’ aims to strengthen research ethics knowledge and skills in Francophone Africa, focusing on the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar and Burundi. With co-Principal Investigator Dr. Joe Tucker from UNC’s Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases, Rennie also leads a new R01 grant to explore the social and ethical challenges surrounding emerging HIV cure research at sites in the USA, China and South Africa.
2013 AugustAnne Lyerly's three-year study of a diverse group of over one hundred expectant moms asked what matters most to women during childbirth. The results, presented to the public for the first time in A Good Birth, show what really matters goes beyond the clinical outcome or even the usual questions of hospital versus birthing center, and reveal universal needs of women, like the importance of feeling connected, safe, and respected.
2013The UNC Center for Genomics and Society has received a 5 year renewal from NHGRI to continue their work! read more »
2013 March
Giselle Corbie-Smith’s Project GRACE Consortium has been selected to receive a 2013 Office of the Provost Engaged Scholarship Award for community-university partnership. This award recognizes UNC-Chapel Hill individuals, units and organizations for their exemplary engaged scholarship.
2013 AprilVisiting Scholar Nikolas Rose was hosted by the Department for several days in late April, in conjunction with the Institute for Arts & Humanities, the College of Arts & Sciences (Interdisciplinary Initiatives Program), and the Center for Bioethics. Rose is Professor of Sociology & Head of the Department of Social Science, Health, & Medicine at Kings College, London. He gave a public talk on April 26 on opening relations between the human/social sciences and the biological sciences. During his visit, he also participated in colloquia with the Moral Economies of Medicine Working Group, the Philosophical Issues in Psychiatry Research Group, a cross-disciplinary graduate reading group, and Duke Department of Cultural Anthropology. Professor Rose writes widely on intersections of biomedicine & sociopolitical forces. His latest book is Neuro: The New Brain Sciences and the Management of the Mind (Princeton, 2013). His visit stimulated conversations about inter-disciplinary collaborations across the UNC campus as well as expanded collaborations between UNC and Kings College London.
- In Memoriam
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George Sheldon, longtime secondary faculty member in Social Medicine, died on June 16, 2013. He had been a consistent and important presence in our department, particularly in the last decade. His advocacy for, and scholarship in, history of science and medicine has been very important, not just in the School of Medicine, but across the UNC campus. His historically-based Humanities & Social Sciences Seminar, taught to a class of second-year medical students each year, was always highly-sought and well-reviewed. Remembrances of Dr. Sheldon’s work in the School of Medicine can be found here.
