The International GTA MUTA Association (IGMA) is exited about our yearly conference coming up on December 9, 10, 11 2022! “Back to the Future; Where we’ve been and where we’re going in medical education’s most effective patient empowerment model.” We have some exceptional speakers including two keynote speakers, Dr. Kelly Underman, author of the book “Feeling Medicine” and Dr. Lauren Mitchell founder of The Doula Project.

Dr. Kelly Underman received her PhD in Sociology from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Medical Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine prior to joining the faculty at Drexel. She is a qualitative researcher whose interests include medical education, the social construction of bodies and emotions, and the politics of scientific knowledge production. Dr. Underman is the author of Feeling Medicine: How the Pelvic Exam Shapes Medical Training (NYU Press, 2020). Her work has also been published in Social Science & Medicine, Gender & Society and Sociological Forum. Her awards include the Simmons Outstanding Dissertation Award from the American Sociological Association Medical Sociology Section. She previously worked as a GTA for ten years. Dr. Underman will be speaking at the conference about her research. To find out more about Dr Underman’s work Click Here.

Dr. Lauren Mitchell, another of our esteemed keynote speakers, is a researcher and direct care practitioner. She is the founder of The Doula Project, the United States’ first formalized full-spectrum doula program, and is the author of the book The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People (Feminist Press 2016). Her first academic book project, Alienating Aesthetics: Performance Art and the Medical Imagination, contends with the ethics of visual and performance culture, narrative, medical history, and the limitations of our current societal definition of empathy. She has recently published in Configurations, Departures in Critical Qualitative Interventions, and The Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, and has held a faculty position at Texas Christian University. She is currently pursuing a Master’s in Social Work at the University of Tennessee and retains a faculty appointment at Vanderbilt University and with the Columbia University Narrative Medicine Certificate of Professional. Achievement Program. She will be speaking on building trust and listening to the patient in a post-pandemic medical landscape. To find out more about Dr. Mitchell’s innovative work with The Doula Project Click Here.

Other acclaimed speakers include Sarah Campbell Bligh and Doug Ferkol from Dalhousie University in Canada who will be presenting on inclusive language. We also have a Pioneer Panel where we will hear from those women who founded the methodology decades ago and will learn how their work early on set the foundation for the work we do today. We will also have presentations on patient advocacy, innovative use of GTAs and MUTAs in SANE training, unconscious bias in medicine and trans and LGBTQ presentations. The conference will have networking hours and Roundtables as well as raffle drawings. Join us. Early bird registration offering significant discounts will be opening soon! To get the most up to date information, sign up for our newsletter by sending an email to admin@gtamuta.org. Take advantage of the benefits of being a member of IGMA, the only professional organization dedicated solely to GTA MUTA methodology. To receive all the benefits of IGMA membership,  Click Here