Global Health Institute

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.

On April 4, 2023, Christopher King, dean of Georgetown’s School of Health, visited our Conversations in Health: Global to Local class to talk about his journey through a career in health as well as how structural racism impacts community health. Dean King has had a long career teaching and working in the health sector, working as assistant vice president for community health at Medstar, director for Greater Baden Medical Services, and many more. This conversation about his various jobs helped me to see some of the different roles that there are in the health care sector that do not have to involve going to medical school. Community health truly depends on everyone working together in the health care system and not only having good doctors, but having dedicated and compassionate teachers and workers.