Medical professionals gather at UIC for annual symposium that focuses on health justice

CHICAGO - A focus on emergency medicine beyond the ER brought health professionals together at the University of Illinois at Chicago Thursday morning.

For those in the medical profession, it's been a while since they met in person in a large conference room. 

With the ongoing pandemic, they had a lot to discuss.

"It's the first gathering towards the end of this pandemic, in person, really celebrating the work that a lot of us have done over the past almost two years, but also focusing on health justice and equity is so important. We've seen so many issues around this pandemic be related to the inequities in our system and celebrating the idea that we can use the lessons of the past couple of years to really make changes going forward," said Dr. Dara Cass, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, Columbia University Medicine.

The Health Justice Symposium from the University of Illinois at Chicago Emergency Medicine Residency program focuses on caring for patients beyond the ER.

"Social emergency medicine is the interplay of social factors and medicine and social factors, i.e., resources to physicians, food availability and food deserts and how we can have a role in impacting patient’s outcomes," explained Dr. Chris Colbert, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago.

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The annual symposium is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Tamara O’Neal, an emergency medicine doctor killed outside Mercy Hospital in 2018, who was a fighter for health justice.

"While Dr. O’Neal’s promising career was cut short, her promising career lives on in all those being honored tonight," said Gov. J.B. Pritzker in a recorded video for the event.

FOX 32's Tia Ewing and Sally Schulze were honored with the health justice service award, for getting the word out about medical issues during the pandemic. 

But this event was clearly about honoring medical professionals working now, as well as preparing the next generation of emergency room doctors.