Announcing New Colleague, Dr. Helena Hansen

Dear Colleagues, Students and Social Medicine Intellectual Community and Friends,

I wanted to share with you the great news that the prominent psychiatrist and anthropologist, Dr. Helena Hansen joined the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry and Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, where she will be the Associate Director of our Center For Social Medicine and Humanities. She is a foundational proponent of the Structural Vulnerability/Structural Competence approach in clinical education and practice and has a Board Certification in Addiction Medicine. She is a leading critic of pharmaceutical racism and social theorist of social inequality and health. Her book Addicted to Christ (2018 UC Press) is a brilliant ethnography, as moving and fun as it is erudite. Reading it is a great way to get to know her theoretical frameworks and understand how they are integrated into her life, and human/social justice/clinical values and practice.

We are especially grateful to the Dean of the School of Medicine for her commitment to social medicine scholarship as an integral component of UCLA’s research and educational missions.  Over two years ago, the Dean recognized the importance of Helena’s scholarship and initiated a Target of Excellence recruitment process mobilizing resources and enthusiasm from across the school, the campus, and our partners across the city. We also thank our interim Chair for making this possible as well as the Deans of Music and of Social Sciences. Of course, none of this could have happened without the enthusiastic support of our faculty colleagues, Vice Chair of EDI, MD/PhD students, psychiatry residents, fellows, and larger intellectual communities across campus and beyond.

– Dr. Philippe Bourgois, Sept. 15, 2020.