Saturday and Sunday in Oslo: European Conference on Social Medicine

 

The whole reason I was in Norway was for the first-ever European Conference on Social Medicine, hosted by the University of Oslo. Under the banner of "Practice. Theory. Action." the organizers planned two and a half days of activities, beginning with a community-immersion activity Friday afternoon: either a city tour with a drug user/activist or a tour of a clinic for undocumented migrants. I chose the latter and ran into a number of friends and colleagues who were also in town for the conference.

"No one is illegal"

After the tours was dinner at Vippa, a food hall featuring immigrant cuisines.

Then we walked across downtown to a leftist cafe for arts and crafts. (I stopped to buy an ice cream cone on the way.) While other people painted a banner, composed a conference song, or did improv, I sewed a patch ("Do no harm").

Saturday was a full day of keynote speaks, posters, and sessions.

Plenary keynote by Helena Hansen, MD, PhD, Professor and Interim Chair of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine

"Liberation medicine: A literature course in medical school" at the University of Halle

"Together against Tuberculosis," a program at Justus-Liebig medical school that paired medical students with patients with tuberculosis, to help the patients navigate treatment and the students overcome prejudice against immigrant or poor individuals.

"Diversity-Sensitive Medicine (DiverMed)--Developing a Longitudinal Curriculum to Teach Structural Competence" at the medical school in Brandenburg.

Plenary keynote by Ghassan Abu-Sittah, MD, Associate Professor, American University of Beirut Medical Centre, a surgeon who spoke about justice for Palestine.

Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the workshop I led with friend JB,

"The Practice and Praxis of Structural Ableism in Healthcare."

Group brainstorm: "What is social medicine?" I confess I was not as prepared as I wanted to be for this part: I had ordered Medicine on a Larger Scale: Global Histories of Social Medicine from my favorite bookstore, but they messed up the order, so it didn't arrive in time to be my airplane entertainment (which I needed, because the wifi was poor both ways, so I played inordinate amounts of wooden block puzzle on my phone). ETA: I've since received, read, and reviewed the book for JHMAS!

Dinner was vegan Middle Eastern food prepared by a Black-owned catering company at a progressive theater venue. After we ate, the whole group sang the conference song to the tune of "Bella Ciao"; lyrics reproduced below. Have you ever been to a conference with its own theme song?

We come together

In stormy weather

We share our will

Share our hearts

Share our calls calls calls

We come together

Birds of a feather

To share our stories and our thoughts

We're more than doctors

We're more than scholars

We have a vision of health

Full of hope hope hope

Collective knowledge

Collective power

To transform and to resist

Let us imagine

A world of justice

A world of care, world of love,

world of peace peace peace

A painful struggle

A joyful struggle

In solidarity we trust

It was very warm on the second level where I ate with friend JB, who didn't want to play trivia, so we left early to meet her husband for fancy cocktails at a fancy hotel, which was a lovely way to end the day. This is my The Counting Sheep, made from Scotch whiskey, cloudberry and raspberry, hay (!), citrus, and vegan foamer.

Sunday morning I only stayed for the keynote and looked at the posters, because I was afraid that if I tried to squeeze in another paper session, I might get to the airport late.

"Trans History and the Troubling Legacy of Social Medicine"

Plenary Keynote by Ketil Slagstad, MD, PhD Fellow, Institute for History of Medicine and Ethics in Medicine at Charité, Berlin

 As it turns out, I was early for my flight and had a solid hour to check email while I waited, but I decided that was better than giving myself an ulcer trying to navigate an unfamiliar mass-transit system and potentially miss my trans-Atlantic flight, since I have to work on Monday.

So long, Norway! It's been a blast. Looking back, here's "Norway by the Numbers."