Virtual Smythe Lecture set for April 20
McGovern Medical School will welcome Louise Aronson, MD, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, as the keynote speaker for the 2021 Cheves Smythe Distinguished Lecture, April 20.
Aronson will present on “Pandemic and Prejudice: Lessons from COVID-19 About Aging and Healthcare in America” at 4 p.m., via Cisco Webex.
A graduate of Harvard Medical School, Aronson has received the Gold Professorship in Humanism in Medicine, the California Homecare Physician of the Year Award, and the American Geriatrics Society Clinician-Teacher of the Year Award. At UCSF, she has served as director of the Pathways to Discovery Program, the Northern California Geriatrics Education Center, and the Optimizing Aging Project, as well as the chief of Geriatrics Education.
Aronson is a leading geriatrician, writer, educator, professor of medicine, and author of the New York times bestseller and Pulitzer Prize finalist Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, and Reimagining Life. Her writing credits include the New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Discover, Vox, JAMA, Lancet, and the New England Journal of Medicine. She has also been featured on TODAY, CBS This Morning, NPR’s Fresh Air, Morning Edition, Politico, Kaiser Health News, Tech Nation, and the New Yorker.
Aronson divides her time among patient care, community-based aging innovations, teaching, health advocacy in the media, and writing.
The Cheves Smythe Distinguished Lecture was established in 2006 to honor Dr. Cheves Smythe, the first dean of the medical school, who served 1970-75. Smythe skillfully guided the school through its early years with his long-standing commitment to the field of geriatrics and education and his exemplary standards of leadership.