An Ethnography of Structural Competence in Health Care: Uninsured Immigrant Patients’ Lived Experience as Educational Opportunity

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 11:25 am
  In Roundtable Session: Revealing Opportunities to Advance Equity in the Professions (Table 22)

Abstract

Recent reports show a simultaneous decrease in U.S. life expectancy and an increase in healthcare spending; evidence suggests a correlation between these outcomes and exclusionary social policies intersecting with the healthcare system. Medical education has continued to develop a curriculum around structural competence that focuses on how social forces shape patients’ health and the ability of health professionals to care for them. I use anthropology methods and approaches to analyze the contributions of uninsured immigrants to medical education. Based on 5 years of ethnographic research I argue that these patients transform lived experiences into instructional opportunities for health care students and educators through everyday interactions within and beyond clinical settings.

Author

• Grace Fay Cooper, Temple University