This event is co-sponsored with Berkeley Center for Social Medicine
Associate Professor of Medicine, activist, composer, and co-author of the bestselling book Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice, Rupa Marya, MD, will describe how medicine is limited in its capacity to serve the health of all people by the same histories and contours of power that create and recreate the structural inequalities in society. To achieve the possibility of different health outcomes, we must re-conceptualize health with the understanding of our bodies as systems impacted by the systems we are part of – from ecological to social to microbiological. Drawing fromexperiences in service of communities on the frontlines struggling against police violence and petroleum pipelines and from the science of inflammatory disease, Dr. Marya will provide a compelling case to advance models of diagnosis and treatment for systems-level derangements in order to advance the possibility of health for all.”
Rupa Marya, MD, is an Associate Professor of Medicine at UCSF and faculty director of the Do No Harm Coalition, an organization of over 450 health workers committed to structural change to address health problems. She is an internal medicine specialist whose focus is the care of seriously ill patients in the hospital. Dr. Marya addresses health issues at the nexus of racism and state violence through her medical work and international outreach with her band, Rupa and the April Fishes. She is currently researching the impact of urban regenerative agriculture on the health of historically oppressed people, examining the connection between soil health, human health and inflammation. Dr. Marya’s first book, with co-author Raj Patel, is Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice (2021), which documents the health impacts of colonialism on our bodies, on the planet, and on our societies. She was appointed by Governor Newsom to the Healthy California for All Commission where she brings her perspectives on equity to the dialogue around single-payer healthcare in California.