We bring to our classes many speakers from community health organizations and media outlets that cover health and medicine, both the mainstream press and trade publications. We learn from their insights, and students learn to prepare for a question and answer session with them. Sometimes as a field trip, we go to the speakers’ offices and question them in their own work setting. Some of the speakers we’ve had include:

• Alex Berenson, business writer, The New York Times
• Bonnie Kerker, assistant commissioner for epidemiology, New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
• Diana Berger, diabetes prevention and control program, New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
• Shawn Kennedy, news director, American Journal of Nursing
• Donna Flayhan, PhD, associate professor of communications and media, SUNY New Paltz
• Dr. Ethan Halm, MD, assistant director of research, division of general internal medicine, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine
• Francesca Gany, MD, director of the Center for Immigrant Health at Bellevue/NYU
• Fern Gale Estrow, RD, dietician and nutrition advocate
• Harriet Rabb, general counsel, Rockefeller University
• Henry Finder, editorial director, The New Yorker
• Ken Terry. senior editor, Medical Economics
• Jacqueline Moline, MD, associate professor of community and preventive medicine, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine
• Kristen Bronner, managing editor, The Dartmouth Atlas
• Laurel Pickering, president, New York Business Group on Health
• Nicholas Freudenberg, distinguished professor, program in urban public health, Hunter College
• Robin Osborn, vice president and director of the International Program in Health Policy and Practice, The Commonwealth Fund
• Susan Dooha, executive director, Center for the Independence of the Disabled
• Tim Race, business health editor, The New York Times
• Jonathan Goldstein, senior consultant IS, New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation