"Dr. Marya was engaging and dynamic in her keynote address...
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Rupa Marya
Physician, Activist, Writer, Composer, Founder of Deep Medicine Circle & Co-Founder of Do No Harm Coalition
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“Dr. Marya was engaging and dynamic in her keynote address. The gravity of the presentation brought several attendees to tears. Dr. Marya ‘s work is revolutionary and her call to action is necessary to promote health justice.” – Austin Peay State University
It’s not often that you can combine several passions and be incredible at all of them. But that’s exactly what Dr. Rupa Marya has done. She has joined her love of socially conscious music and activism with a career in medicine. Add to that, the title of author. She, along with political economist Raj Patel, co-authored the book: Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice.
A child of Indian immigrants, Dr. Marya took a less-than-traditional route to study medicine — earning undergraduate degrees in Theater and Molecular Biology at the University of California San Diego before heading to medical school at Georgetown University. It was during her residency at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), that music also began tugging at her heart. Dr. Marya began performing with her band, Rupa and the April Fishes. Today, she is an Associate Professor of Medicine at UCSF, where she practices and teaches internal medicine. Her work sits at the nexus of climate, health and racial justice. She’s also toured 29 countries with her band.
Dr. Marya founded and directs the Deep Medicine Circle, a women-of-color-led, worker-directed nonprofit committed to healing the wounds of colonialism through food, medicine, story and learning. Together with the Muchia Te Indigenous Land Trust, she is piloting the Farming is Medicine project on land that was returned to Indigenous leadership, where farmers are recast as ecological stewards, and food is liberated from the market economy.
Marya is a co-founder of the Do No Harm Coalition, a collective of health workers committed to addressing disease through structural change. At the invitation of Lakȟota health leaders, she has helped support the Mni Wiconi Health Circle at Standing Rock Reservation to decolonize medicine and food.
Marya was recognized in 2021 with the Women Leaders in Medicine Award by the American Medical Student Association. She was a reviewer of the American Medical Association’s Organizational Strategic Plan to Embed Racial Justice and Advance Health Equity. Marya was appointed by Governor Newsom to the Healthy California for All Commission, to advance a model for universal healthcare in California.
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Topics
Topics
Decolonizing Medicine
Farming Is Medicine: Transforming Our World Through Agroecology
Inflammation of the Planet, Societies & Our Bodies
Climate Justice & Health
Videos
Videos
INFLAMED by Rupa Marya and Raj Patel
To Promote Public Health, We Must Decolonize - Rupa Marya
Books
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