Global Health Institute

On April 4, 2023 Georgetown University’s Conversations in Health: Global to Local class welcomed Dr. Christopher King, dean of Georgetown’s School of Health, as the course’s final speaker to discuss his storied career in advancing innovative and equitable approaches in the health care and education spaces. As we participated in Dean King’s interactive discussion, I gained an appreciation for how education can be a guiding light in a rapidly changing health care space. Dean King’s journey to becoming the inaugural leader of Georgetown’s School of Health illustrates the importance of hard work and embracing change in the health care system, and how we can begin to redefine our traditional understanding of health care to truly help the millions who have been left underserved by the current system.

On April 4, our Conversations in Health: Global to Local class had the amazing opportunity to meet and discuss with our final speaker of the semester, Dean Christopher J. King. As inaugural dean of the Georgetown University School of Health, King manages and oversees the school’s graduate and undergraduate programs, helping to guide the education of the next generation of health care professionals. He is also an associate professor and contributes to research and scholarship on the creation of equitable systems of care in the United States. In our all-too-brief hour-and-a-half conversation, we learned firsthand about King’s path and inspiration in life, and how he came to such a prominent and influential position here on campus. More importantly, however, we learned about the social determinants of health, and how a significant component of quality health care takes place far outside a hospital’s doors.