Promoting health, healing and social justice in the Bronx and beyond…
The Department of Family & Social Medicine promotes the health of underserved communities, trains future healthcare leaders, and advocates for social justice through collaborative primary care delivery, education, and research.
Vision
Our efforts successfully advance social change, leading to healthy, empowered communities and transformed health care delivery that provides exemplary, equitable, and humanistic care for all.
Values
We believe that health and health care are human rights.
As human beings and health professionals, it is our responsibility to honor the value of every person, and to see and acknowledge human struggle in the spirit of shared humanity. The goal of health care is more than the relief of suffering; its aim is that sense of physical, emotional, social, and spiritual well-being to which we all aspire.
We believe that primary care is the foundation of effective health care.
Every individual and family need a primary care practitioner as part of a collaborative team as their first point of contact for all health care needs, who is accountable to them, who provides accessible, affordable, continuous and comprehensive care for health promotion and prevention and treatment of acute and chronic illnesses, and who coordinates services received from other parts of the health care system.
We believe that primary care must address the biological, psychological and social determinants of health.
Primary care must be grounded in research, public health, social justice and health equality. We believe in a primary care system that embraces communities as well as individuals; recognizes the impact of social, cultural and racial inequities upon health; and acknowledges and addresses historical and institutional forces that have shaped these inequities. We train exemplary health professionals who are critical and reflective thinkers, advocates, and activists; who honor, with compassion and respect, the resilience and dignity of each individual; who partner effectively with patients and communities; and who integrate the biological with the psychological, social, and spiritual aspects of care.
We believe that inclusive, mutually empowered relationships are essential to our work.
Healthy human relationships—between patients and healers, healthcare workers and community collaborators, teachers and students, and among colleagues—require respect, kindness, warmth, humility, generosity, an appreciation of socio-cultural differences, and space for humor and creativity. A rich human environment is safe, inclusive, curious, and inviting. While serving others, we promote empowerment of one another, our patients, our families, and our communities. We nurture our whole selves, balancing our work and personal lives. We celebrate our uniqueness, our diversity, and our connections.
