Welcome to Social Medicine On Air, a podcast where we explore the field of social medicine with healthcare practitioners, activists, and researchers. We examine the deep causes of health and disease, and dream of a world of justice. We are: Jonas Attilus, Sebastian Fonseca, Raghav Goyal, Brendan Johnson, Leila Sabbagh, & Poetry Thomas.
Funding for our podcast received from Global Social Medicine Network - King’s College London, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine. Funds have been used for equipment and production costs, and funders have no influence over show content.
30 | Healthcare in Haiti in Context | Toni Eyssallenne, Youri Louis, and Pierre Minn (with CAR-Haiti)
Toni Eyssallenne, Youri Louis, and Pierre Minn join us to discuss the larger structural, social, and historical forces which shape healthcare in Haiti. Rather than treating health disparities as isolated or purely clinical problems, this conversation situates them within Haiti’s political economy, colonial and revolutionary legacy, and ongoing global relationships around debt and power. The discussion traces how structural forces shape disease patterns, the delivery of care, and experience as patient and clinician.
This episode is a collaboration with the Campaign Against Racism (CAR) and the CAR-Haiti chapter; enormous thanks to CAR's Anne Marie Collins and Youri Encelotti Louis.
Resources:
"Where They Need Me" (https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501763854/where-they-need-me/#bookTabs=1) by Pierre Minn (2022)
St. Damien Hospital (https://nph.org/stdamien/)
Help! Make it Make Sense podcast (https://open.spotify.com/show/52tWJRufe4uoGF7cIaQ2bF) (cohost Toni Eyssallenne)
SocMed Alumni Haiti (https://www.smahaiti.org/)
Guests:
Toni Eyssallenne graduated from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry’s Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP). Following her chief residency of the combined Internal Medicine-Pediatrics residency program at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida, she worked as a leader in clinical and academic medicine in both the US and Haiti. She designed and led clinical and academic tracks, programs, and departments for faculty, trainees and students in both countries and has dedicated her professional career to underserved communities domestically and abroad. She is currently the Deputy Chief Medical Officer at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and continues to provide primary care to both adults and children with Strong Children Wellness in Queens, NY. Her scholarly work focuses on Sickle Cell Disease and Anti-Racism in clinical medicine and medical education.
Pierre Minn is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the Université de Montréal. His research interests include the moral dimensions of medical practice, transnational humanitarian aid, and global health education and practice. He has conducted long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Haiti since the late 1990s. He is the author of Where They Need Me: Local Clinicians and the Workings of Global Health in Haiti (https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501763854/where-they-need-me/#bookTabs=1) (Cornell University Press, 2022), which analyzes the place of Haitian clinicians the context of foreign medical aid and development projects.
Youri Encelotti Louis is a Haitian-trained physician and social medicine expert dedicated to dismantling systemic healthcare inequities. As a Co-Founder of SocMed Alumni Haiti (https://www.smahaiti.org/), Board member - Program Lead at EqualHealth and Care Coordinator at Dialogue Health, he leverages over a decade of experience in program management and research to advance decolonization and health equity. His work centers on building community-led initiatives that bridge the gap between medical practice and social justice.
25 Jun 2024
[Trailer] Introducing Hope is a Talent!
Dear Social Medicine On Air community!
We are incredibly excited to share with you our new project, Hope is a Talent, a podcast exploring the intersection of health and Palestine.
Our first three episodes can all be found here: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hope-is-a-talent
We have more interviews and work lined up and are excited to share it with you. We also have NOT stopped working on SMOA content, and are currently working on a new episode to release separate from this Palestine series -- excited to get it out there.
As always, we love to hear from folks. If you have ideas, suggestions, interview recommendations or ANYTHING at all, please email us at SocialMedicineOnAir@gmail.com.
With so much gratitude,
Nadine, Brendan, and Raghav
31 May 2024
[UNEDITED] Hope is a Talent - 1 | Testimony from Northern Gaza
This is the companion piece to the first episode of our new series, Hope is a Talent. This is the unedited audio journal shared to us from our colleague in northern Gaza, Amro Hamadda between the months of November 2023 through March 2024. He is an inspiration to us, and his voice is a guide.
We are unendingly grateful for him taking the time to record these, record them in English, somehow figure out how to upload them to the cloud, and get them to us while trying to survive and provide for his family.
Thank you Amro.
Inside a recent episode
30 | Healthcare in Haiti in Context | Toni Eyssallenne, Youri Louis, and Pierre Minn (with CAR-Haiti)
Published 24 Apr 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] But kind of the front line of healthcare in Haiti for most people is things that they do or they make at home. At the same time, people are very interested in biomedical resources. And so those can come from different places. They can come from pharmacies. It can come from people who sell pharmaceutical products as kind of walking salespeople or going to clinics or dispensaries or hospitals. And those clinics and dispensaries and hospitals, many of them have relationships with outside actors. So you have both a series of government, official kind of national groups, health establishments at different tiers. […]
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