Harvard Surgeon, Author to Deliver Lecture on Unconscious Bias

WHAT: The Johns Hopkins Centers to Reduce Health Disparities and the Office of Diversity and Cultural Competence will host a symposium on unconscious bias and disparities in health care featuring renowned Harvard orthopedic surgeon and author Augustus A. White III, M.D., and leaders from Johns Hopkins disparities centers. White, who is the author of Seeing Patients: Unconscious Bias in Health Care, is the first African-American department chief at Harvard's teaching hospitals.

The program will also include a multidisciplinary panel to engage health care providers, educators, leaders and researchers in a dialogue on cultural competence in health care and how to work together to eliminate health disparities. The panel will be moderated by Thomas LaVeist, Ph.D., professor and director of the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions. Participants will include:

· Lisa Cooper, M.D., M.P.H., professor of general internal medicine and director of the Johns Hopkins Center to Eliminate Cardiovascular Disparities

· Daniel Brotman, M.D., associate professor of general internal medicine and director of the hospitalist program at The Johns Hopkins Hospital

· Carlton Haywood Jr., Ph.D., M.A., assistant professor in the Division of Hematology and associate faculty in the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics

· Leonard Richardson, M.D., president of Monumental City Medical Society

· Myron Weisfeldt, M.D., William Osler Professor of Medicine and chairman of the Department of Medicine, will facilitate the question and answer session.

WHEN: Monday, October 3, 2011

TIME: 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

WHERE: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Hurd Hall, 600 N. Wolfe St., Baltimore, MD 21287

A continuation of the program, which will be open to community members, will be held at 7 p.m. at the Central Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, which is located at 400 Cathedral St. in Baltimore.

DETAILS: Johns Hopkins leaders will be available for questions before and after the morning program at 8:30 a.m. and noon. For more information on parking and to make arrangements for a media escort, please contact Shannon Swiger at 443-287-8560 (office) or 704-806-2409 (cell).