Health disparities education is an integral and required part of medical professional training, and yet existing curricula often fail to effectively denaturalize injustice or empower learners to advocate for change. We discuss a novel collaborative intervention that weds the health humanities to the field of health equity. We draw from the health humanities an intentional focus retraining provider imaginations by centering patient narratives; from the field of health equity, we draw the linkage between stigmatized social identities and health disparities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis essay offers a theological exploration of the relationship between medical fatalism and religious belonging among African-American women in Memphis. Drawing on the work of black and womanist theologians and on conversations with participants in a diabetes intervention program administered by a faith-based community health provider, I argue that how we narrate the meanings of our bodies is irreducibly religious. The language we use to interpret and communicate the meaning of our bodily existence emerges from a set of assumptions, often unarticulated, about what is of ultimate value to us.
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