Dining Dilemmas

Students grapple with health care inequity

By Wake Forest University

November 6^th, 2019

tackling tough questions

With health care a key issue in the 2020 elections, the timing was right for Wake Forest students to gather over dinner, hear from experts about the challenges of health care access and grapple with solutions around access to medical care.

Since it began in 2012, Dining Dilemmas has drawn a diverse group of students to tackle medical ethics in facilitated group discussions over a meal. Each semester, Dining Dilemmas engages students across class years, academic majors and career interests. This semester's topic was “Racing for Health: Is Everyone at the Starting Line?”

expert help

The 65 students who attended heard from experts on health care inequity, including Dave McIntosh, VP and Chief Inclusion and Diversity Officer at Wake Forest Baptist Health; Dr. Brenda Latham-Sadler, Assoc. Dean of Student Inclusion and Diversity and Associate Professor of Family and Community Medicine at Wake Forest School of Medicine; and Jesus Avila Vega (‘14), who graduated from Wake Forest with a degree in health and exercise science and is attending medical school.

digging in

“Dining Dilemmas is an amazing idea that allows passionate students the chance to engage in challenging and thought-provoking conversation while giving them a better understanding of the roles race, economic status and education play in our everyday lives,” said first-year student Patience U. Brown ('23).

“When Ana Iltis and I started Dining Dilemmas seven years ago, we wanted to create a ‘safe place’ for ethical discussions about health care issues, but it has done much more than that,” said teaching professor of biology Pat Lord. “It has created a community where all of us can learn from each other through meaningful honest conversations, as well as strengthen our sense of belonging.”