The Social Emergency Medicine Committee aims to provide extra-clinical, educational, and advocacy opportunities for residents, incorporating our patients’ social context into routine emergency medicine care.
Social EM Sub-Committees
Access to Care
Resident Leaders:
Andrew Kerrigan
Andy Quiñones-Rivera
Chase Westra
Our goals are to (1) improve access to care for our patients beyond the ED (2) strengthen partnerships to address patient’s social needs that impact their health (3) learn, disseminate, and improve upon best practices in the areas of cultural humility and structural competence to better understand that systemic factors impact patient health and wellbeing.
Asylum & Detainee Health
Our goal is to serve members of our community who are seeking asylum in the United States due to persecution based of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, gender identity, sexual orientation, or political opinion though the provision of forensic medical evaluations and affidavits both in Los Angeles and Tijuana, MX.
Resident Leaders:
Ashley Allen
Eric Arnold
Justice Health
Resident Leaders:
Collin Cousins
Cara Buchanan
The justice-health subcommittee mission centers around education, advocacy, and promotion of the specific health considerations of the justice-involved patient population served within the LAC+USC Jail Emergency Room. Our goal is to explore the factors that contribute to the particular vulnerabilities experienced by this patient population, and to create interventions that promote justice-health equity.
Street Medicine & Homeless Healthcare
As providers at a safety net hospital, we are humbled to be the first line of healthcare access for some of the most vulnerable patient communities. Our goal is to address the barriers to care that patients experiencing homelessness face on a daily basis through advocacy and collaboration with the Department of Health Services and Keck Street Medicine Teams.
Resident Leaders:
Hurnan Vongsachang
Peter Mattson
Substance Use Disorders
Resident Leaders:
Hurnan Vongsachang
Taylor Docter
Our goal is to better serve patients who are suffering from the large spectrum that is “Substance Use” from the Emergency Room through training on the management of acute withdrawal and intoxication, use of mediation-assisted treatment (MAT), and harm reduction strategies, as well as improving linkage to care to outpatient services.
Violence Intervention
Our goal is to provide a trauma wraparound services in the Emergency Room by bringing violence intervention specialists and community workers to the bedside to assist in the management of patient affected by violence.
Resident Leader(s):
Kinzi Halle
Learn more about Social EM at LAC+USC
Visit our website to learn more about our subcommittees, resident leaders, ongoing projects, and upcoming events.
