Beyond Flexner: social mission in medical education | Fitzhugh Mullan | TEDxFoggyBottom

Equity in medicine is currently one of the most heated issues in the United States. Dr. Fitzhugh Mullan argues that in order to create medical equality in the US, we must target the root of the problem, and reform medical education so that it focuses on the social mission of medicine. Fitzhugh Mullan is a physician, a medical educator, a writer and a contrarian. Although he is the product of traditional institutions (Harvard College and the University of Chicago Medical School) and has worked in traditional institutions (the US Public Service, the policy journal Health Affairs, and the faculty of George Washington University), he has often been a critic of business as usual. He went to Mississippi as a civil rights worker during medical school and wrote a book about it -- White Coat, Clenched Fist. In his life as a pediatrician, administrator, writer, Assistant Surgeon General, and as a teacher of medical and public health students, he has worked against complacency in the medical system and for health equity as the foundational principle of the healing arts. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx