Medicine and Public Health at the End of Empire: Talk & Booksigning by Howard Waitzkin

Physician, medical sociologist, writer, activist and advocate Howard Waitzkin is a co-author of the Single Payer health bill introduced into US Congress by Rep. John Conyers and Sen. Bernie Sanders, and the founder of the Civilian Medical Resource Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing pro bono and low cost health care to people in the military, veterans and their families.

For decades, Dr. Waitzkin has realized that "one does not need to travel outside the United States to find the 'Third World'. Instead, areas quite close to home manifest problems and challenges that resemble those of countries usually labeled as economically less developed." As an active member of the Latin American Association of Social Medicine, he researches evolving health care systems that have led to improved outcomes in Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, Uruguay and Brazil and suggests how these new paradigms could be utilized in the US. A focus of his discussion will be how we, as citizen-activists, can improve health care for ourselves, our families, our communities and nationwide.

Dr. Waitzkin is the keynote speaker for the GI Rights Network conference, which is co-sponsored by the Resource Center for Nonviolence and Santa Cruz WILPF. The Santa Cruz GI Rights Network counseling group is a program of the RCNV.

$5 requested, no one turned away for lack of funds