2025 Lectures
The Cheever Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics invites you to attend the
2025 Frank Bryant Memorial Lecture
presented by Keisha Ray, PhD.
Thursday, May 8, 2025, 12pm -1 pm
Holly Auditorium at UT Health San Antonio. 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, San Antonio
The Charles E. Cheever, Jr. Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics invites you to hear “The Story of Our Health: Housing and Chronic Illness in Texas” by Keisha Ray, PhD. The more we learn about the social influences on our health, the more we learn about the influence of economic, education, income, and environmental inequities on the health of people of color. One of the most impactful social influences on our health is where we live, and people of color tend to live in resource-deprived neighborhoods, with less access to recreation, unpolluted air and water, safe homes, access to health care, and other necessary resources. In Texas cities such as San Antonio and Houston, where people of color live, is directly related to their generally poorer health. In this presentation, we will explore the relationship between a lack of social resources and common chronic illnesses such as asthma, dementia, diabetes, and heart disease among Black and Hispanic people.
About the Speaker
Keisha Ray, PhD is a tenured Associate Professor and holds the John P. McGovern, MD Professorship of Oslerian Medicine at the McGovern Center for Humanities & Ethics at UT Health Houston, where she also serves as the Director of the Medical Humanities Scholarly Concentration. Most of Dr. Ray’s work focuses on the effects of non-medical drivers of health, highlighting narratives of lived experience, and the sociopolitical implications of biomedical enhancement. Her work uniquely prioritizes linguistic justice as a matter of access and commitment to public scholarship.
Dr. Ray grew up in San Antonio and attended Health Careers High School. She received her PhD in philosophy from the University of Utah. She serves as an associate editor for the American Journal of Bioethics and its online site, “Bioethics Today” as well as Senior Associate Editor for the Journal of Medical Humanities. Dr. Ray has also been elected as a Hastings Center Fellow. Lastly, Dr. Ray is the author of the book “Black Health: The Social, Political, and Cultural Determinants of Black People’s Health” with Oxford University Press.
Continuing Medical Education:
The UT Health Science Center San Antonio is accredited by the ACCME (Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
†This presentation meets the Texas Medical Board criteria for formal continuing education.