Join Emory HOPE and KDSAP for a panel discussing social determinants of health among COVID-19 patients this Monday, September 21st, from 5-6pm ET. Many social determinants of health—including poverty, physical environment (eg, smoke exposure, homelessness), and race or ethnicity—can have a considerable effect on COVID-19 outcomes. Chronic disease patients are also at a higher risk. The panelists will have expertise in a range of backgrounds including chronic disease, sociology, and internal medicine. They will discuss how the pandemic has affected health outcomes among particular groups in the U.S. For the first 30-40 minutes, the panelists will present and the remaining time will be used for audience Q+A. Here are the panelists' information:
Emily Pingel
Emily Pingel is a 6th year PhD student in Sociology at Emory University. Her research focuses on the social determinants of health and patient-provider interactions. Sponsored by a Fulbright Research Award and a Boren Fellowship, Emily conducted 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork at a primary care clinic in São Paulo, Brazil, exploring how community health unfolds in an ethno racially diverse neighborhood with a large immigrant population. These data will form the basis for her dissertation. Emily received her Master’s in Public Health from the University of Michigan in 2009 and was Managing Director of the Center for Sexuality and Health Disparities, under the mentorship of Dr. José Bauermeister. As part of the SexLab, she conducted extensive qualitative and quantitative research on HIV/STI prevention among queer and transgender youth.
Dr. Maura George
Dr. George completed her residency in Internal Medicine and joined the Division of General Medicine and Geriatrics at Grady after graduation. Maura has always felt a calling to work for the underserved, and has harmonized between this goal and her love for teaching at Grady. She helped develop the Social Medicine program and has served as the course director of the Social Medicine elective, which teaches medical students and residents about the social determinants of health, patient advocacy, and cultural competency. She is an active teacher across all levels of learners and teaches in the Osler Society as a Small Group Advisor. In addition to her busy teaching and clinical schedules, she is active on many committees, serving as co-chair of the Grady Ethics Committee, board member for Georgia Watch, member of the Society for General Internal Medicine’s Ethics Committee and Health Policy Committee, and faculty advisor for the student group Volunteer Medical Interpretive Services (VMIS).
Dr. Laura Plantinga
Dr. Plantinga was a graduate of the Rollins School of Public Health (PhD, epidemiology) and she previously trained at Johns Hopkins University (ScM, biostatistics) and the University of Maryland (BS, zoology). Prior to completing her doctoral degree, Dr.
Plantinga served as project director and co-investigator for a CDC-funded effort to establish a national CKD surveillance system. Through this work, she disseminated national estimates of CKD burden, awareness, and quality of care. She also serves on the Editorial Board of Kidney International and as an Associate Editor for BMC Nephrology. Her research focuses on the quality of care among patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Her doctoral work examined the sociodemographic and geographic determinants of quality of care among
U.S. lupus patients with ESRD. Additionally, Dr. Plantinga collaborates on a variety of studies with Emory investigators in transplant, geriatrics, rheumatology, and epidemiology, as well as renal medicine, aimed at improving care in the underserved
CKD/ESRD patient population.
Dr. Kari Leigh Esbensen
Dr. Esbensen came to Emory for the opportunity to pursue her passions of providing care to seriously ill patients and their families and teaching trainees at all levels the art of medicine. She also came to Emory to become involved in Emory’s Center for Ethics. She is currently the palliative medicine clerkship director and co-teaches several sessions in ethics to medical students. Recently, she designed and implemented a new curriculum for teaching communication skills at the bedside for students who rotate at Emory University Hospital during their third-year medicine clerkship. Dr. Esbensen enjoys encouraging learners to become fully engaged with a patient or patient’s family in a way that not only shapes their experience, but also invites the learner to reflect on their own personhood, vulnerability, and the gifts they bring to the table to comfort those in need of healing. She loves teaching that healing is not the same as curing and that each of us can be part of one another’s healing just through our presence, concern, time, and listening.
Join them at the Zoom meeting below this Monday!
Meeting ID: 923 9030 2200
Passcode: KDSAPxHOPE