“I think this can be done”: Kenan Senior Fellow Patrick T. Smith on the Virtue of Solidarity and How It Can Transform Medicine

In the recently published magazine “Virtues & Vocations: Higher Education for Human Flourishing,” Kenan Senior Fellow Patrick T. Smith writes about confronting the debilitating effects of racism on human health. According to Smith, studies demonstrate that these effects are traceable not only to the social determinants of health, such as access to housing, education, transportation, etc., but to the systemic drivers of those conditions—i.e., the role of racism in shaping American life.

Reimagining and transforming our culture into a “culture of health” requires collective action on a massive scale. But where to begin? As a faculty member in Duke University School of Medicine, Smith offers a way that medical schools can contribute to these efforts: by promoting the virtue of solidarity.

“As a firm commitment to the common good of all people, solidarity calls us to confront inequalities in health outcomes and advocate for the those on the margins.”

Read more from Smith in Virtues & Vocations magazine, a publication of the Center for Social Concerns at the University of Notre Dame.