Please join us for our upcoming REPAIR Project Teach-in:
Vaccine Apartheid: Can we Decolonize the Distribution of Health Resources? The event takes place November 2nd, 5:30-7 p.m.
This event will feature three expert speakers-- Simar Bijaj, Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, and Eliza Wheeler (bios below and poster attached), and should be an engaging, exciting conversation on how we can seek to decolonize the health sciences. The link for the event is: https://ucsf.zoom.us/j/97352930773?pwd=NnRxUEZaa1NXVVpGbXlsK3lWeVN5dz09
Speaker Bios:
Simar Bajaj studies the History of Science at Harvard University and is interested in global healthcare delivery and forging a more equitable medical ecosystem. His research spans oncological disparities, cardiothoracic surgery education, and health policy transformation, with over 50 papers published in journals like The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Medicine, British Medical Journal, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Believing writing is a tool for civic engagement, Simar is also a contributor for the Washington Post, Guardian, Undark, and Smithsonian Magazine; his other science journalism pieces have appeared in TIME Magazine, NPR, Scientific American, and more. In addition to being a National Student Leadership Conference Scholar and TEDx speaker, Simar mentors over 30 students in research and journalism, serves as the President of the World-Pre Health Conference, and hosts That Medic Podcast.
Fatima Cody Stanford, MD, MPH, MPA, MBA, FAAP, FACP, FAHA, FAMWA, FTOS is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics who practices and teaches at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)/ Harvard Medical School (HMS) as one of the first fellowship-trained obesity medicine physicians worldwide. She is one of the most highly cited obesity medicine physician-scientists with over 150 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Stanford received her BS and MPH from Emory University as an MLK Scholar, her MD from the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine as a Stoney Scholar, her MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government as a Zuckerman Fellow in the Harvard Center for Public Leadership, and her executive MBA as a merit-based scholarship recipient from the Quantic School of Business and Technology. She completed her Obesity Medicine & Nutrition Fellowship at MGH/HMS after completing her internal medicine and pediatrics residency at the University of South Carolina. She has served as a health communications fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and as a behavioral sciences intern at the American Cancer Society. Upon completing her MPH, she received the Gold Congressional Award, the highest honor that Congress bestows upon America’s youth. Dr. Stanford has completed a medicine and media internship at the Discovery Channel. An American Medical Association (AMA) Foundation Leadership Award recipient in 2005, an AMA Paul Ambrose Award for national leadership among resident physicians in 2009, she was selected for the AMA Inspirational Physician Award in 2015. The American College of Physicians (ACP) selected her as the 2013 recipient of the Joseph E. Johnson Leadership Award, and the Massachusetts ACP selected her for the Young Leadership Award in 2015. She is the 2017 recipient of the HMS Amos Diversity Award and Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS) Award for Women’s Health. In 2019, she was selected as the Suffolk District Community Clinician of the Year for the Reducing Health Disparities Award for MMS. She was chosen for The Obesity Society Clinician of the Year in 2020. In 2021, she was awarded the MMS Grant Rodkey Award for her dedication to medical students and the AMA Dr. Edmond and Rima Cabbabe Dedication to the Profession Award, which recognizes a physician who demonstrates active and productive improvement to the profession of medicine through community service, advocacy, leadership, teaching, or philanthropy. She is the 2021 Recipient of the Emory Rollins School of Public Health Distinguished Alumni Award. In 2022, the National Academy of Medicine selected her as a Scholar in Diagnostic Excellence.
Eliza Wheeler: In 2001, I started working at the Cambridge Needle Exchange in Massachusetts. I met my greatest mentors and teachers there, the amazing humans who used the program, and people who had been doing syringe access and underground naloxone distribution for many years. I became friends and co-conspirators with Maya Doe-Simkins in 2004. I spent eight life-changing years in Cambridge learning and hanging out in the drop-in slinging coffee and syringes and free cigarettes (sorry not sorry, DPH). In 2009 I moved to California to work with the DOPE Project in San Francisco and started learning more about the challenges that harm reduction programs across the country were still facing in getting access to affordable naloxone, despite growing mainstream attention. Sometime around 2012 I ended up working with Dan Bigg and Maya (aka shrimp) to coordinate the naloxone Buyers Club, which mostly consisted of trying to wrangle Dan on three-way phone calls, making spreadsheets and connecting harm reduction programs to millions of doses of cheap naloxone. Now ten years later, this labor of love has transformed into Remedy Alliance/For the People, and we are finally making Dan’s vision a reality–that harm reduction programs across the country have access to the resources they need to care for their communities and that naloxone gets directly into the hands of people who use drugs and their friends and family. Somewhere in these last 20+ years I also wrote and contributed to some research and policy work around expanding access to naloxone for people who use drugs and related topics and repeatedly spoke to government people while wearing my one suit. In 2019 I co-organized the Alliance for Collaborative Drug Checking (ACDC) with colleagues in Chicago, which is now an international learning space with nearly 300 members who are developing advanced drug checking services for harm reduction settings. Today, RA/FTP is my main focus, but I still work needle exchange every Friday at my favorite program, Homeless Youth Alliance in San Francisco and am honored to serve on the Board for Maine Access Points. I love gardening and hanging out with my perfect dog Chicky and rad guy Jason.
Event Recording: