Humanities & Society

Eliminating the need to ascertain eligibility.Years of double-digit increases in health care costs are devastating business, federal, state and family budgets. While the United States pays more per capita for health care than any other industrialized country, 44 million people lack assured care. “Most people overlook the most affordable way to achieve universal coverage – putting all of us under the Medicare umbrella,” says Merton C. Bernstein, a founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and the Coles Professor of Law Emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis. “That single-payer system would reduce non-benefit spending by doctors, hospitals, clinics, laboratories and health care insurers by about $300 billion a year, providing funds to insure everyone without additional outlays.”

Washington University’s George Warren Brown School of Social Work and Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies are hosting the 15th annual powwow, in conjunction with American Indian Awareness Week and the celebration of the Buder Center’s 15th anniversary. The powwow, which is free and open to the public, will run noon to 10 p.m. Saturday, April 9 at the University’s Athletic Center near the intersection of Forsyth Boulevard and Olympian Way. Arts & crafts booths will be open at 10 a.m. This year’s anniversary powwow features American Indian arts, crafts, music, food, a stomp dance exhibit and an expanded dance contest, which is expected to draw tribal dancers from throughout the Midwest. Grand entries of dancers will be showcased at 1 and 7 p.m.

Acclaimed writer and physician Rafael Campo will read from his work at 7 p.m., Friday, April 15, at Washington University’s Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. The talk is free and open to the public and is sponsored by The Center for the Humanities and The Writing Program, both in Arts & Sciences, in conjunction with the Kemper Art Museum’s Inside Out Loud: Women’s Health in Contemporary Art (through April 24).

Anita Diamant, author of the bestselling novel, The Red Tent, will deliver the Women’s Society of Washington University Adele Starbird Lecture for the Assembly Series at 11 a.m., Wednesday, April 20th in Graham Chapel. Her talk is entitled “Imagining the Past: A Conversation with Anita Diamant.”

Scientists studying a common childhood brain tumor have uncovered a pleasant surprise: evidence that the tumors may be vulnerable to a class of drugs that has been in use for years.

Events will include screenings of Eyes on the Prize episodes and a panel discussion about the significance of the series.

WenThree students from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have been chosen for prominent offices, including national president, within the American Medical Student Association (AMSA). Leana S. Wen was elected national president; Andrew R. Reinink was named an associate regional trustee for Region VIII; and Kao-Ping Chua was hired for the position of Jack Rutledge Fellow.

Dancer at the 2004 PowwowAn American Indian powwow, traditional cuisine, storytelling, music and crafts will be among the highlights of the University’s American Indian Awareness Week April 4-9. “Although the Kathryn M. Buder Center has been hosting American Indian Awareness Week for the last 14 years, this year is the most significant in our history, as it is a celebration honoring our 15 year anniversary,” says Dana Klar, interim director of the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work. The annual powwow and awareness week allow the University’s American Indian students to share their unique cultures with the rest of the campus and the St. Louis community. All events are free and open to the public.

Photo by Tim Parker(From left) Sam, Dylan and Ashley Mopkins show the scarves they made for their mom.When dealing with life-threatening diseases such as cancer, complete care sometimes extends to other members of the family. That’s the idea behind the Help Us Give Support (HUGS) program at Siteman Cancer Center. Members of HUGS, children between the ages of 4 and 12, recently took part in an Arts as Healing event to create decorative scarves for their mother or grandmother fighting breast cancer. Read more from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Vegetarians who don’t cook their food have abnormally low bone mass, usually a sign of osteoporosis and increased fracture risk. But a research team at the School of Medicine also found that raw food vegetarians have other biological markers indicating their bones, although light in weight, may be healthy.