Officials from Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine helped kick off Oakland University’s eighth annual Healthology Symposium last week.
The symposium focused on “Achieving Health Diversity” by exploring healthy literacy, encouraging communication and advocacy, discovering community resources, and inviting commitment to restorative well-being.
OUWB faculty was featured during the first session called “Healthy Literacy.” Participants were Professor Misa Mi, Ph.D., Professor Ramin Homayouni, Ph.D., and Dean’s Distinguished Professor Jason Wasserman, Ph.D.
They were introduced by Christopher Carpenter, M.D., Stephan Sharf Dean, OUWB.
“OUWB aims to develop compassionate physicians who are dedicated to improving the health of their communities, collaboration, and lifelong learning — and this is a great event to focus on that,” said Carpenter.
“We strive to be a leader in medical communication…(and) OUWB is very pleased to sponsor the Healthy Literacy session of the 2025 Healthology Symposium,” he added.
The entire symposium was billed as a “unique experience planned by diverse health leaders from the School of Health Sciences, Oakland University at large, and the community.”
The event featured lightning talks, interactive presentations, keynote speakers (Michael Spehn and Gina Kell Spehn), networking, refreshments and more. It was free to attend and in addition to OUWB, sponsors included Karmanos Cancer Center, McLaren Health Care, Apricity Foundation, MedNetOne, Easterseals MORC, Priority Health, and several other Oakland University organizations.
Wasserman served as co-chair of the Healthy Literacy session. He said the goal “was to examine how knowledge translation can drive care transformation, ensuring that health information is accessible, accurate, and meaningful across diverse populations.”
“This session sought to address disparities in health literacy by integrating culturally sensitive, person-centered approaches into health care communication,” he said. “Additionally, it explored how AI and other technologies can be leveraged to enhance patients’ ability to find reliable medical information. The ethical dimensions of health communication, including the role of health literacy in informed consent and trust-building, also were a critical focus.”
Homayouni talked about “AI Chatbots in Health.” | |
Homayouni talked about “AI Chatbots in Health.” |
By bringing together experts in clinical ethics, medical education, and health informatics, said Wasserman, the session aimed to foster interdisciplinary dialogue on improving patient outcomes through effective communication strategies, “which was important given the diverse audience of practitioners from different areas of the health care and social service systems.”
Wasserman said he hopes attendees left with “deeper appreciation of how health literacy is fundamental to ethical and effective health care.”
“We talk a lot about getting informed consent from the patient as a cornerstone of ethical practice, but health literacy is a cornerstone for doing that,” he said.
Wasserman said he also hopes attendees gained insights into strategies for making medical information more accessible (particularly for marginalized populations), reflected on how technology can complement human interaction in health care, and better understanding of the importance of cultural humility in medical community and that the definition of “normal” in medicine varies for different communities and patients.
“Ultimately, this session aimed to inspire attendees to incorporate these lessons into their own practices, whether in clinical care, medical education, or health policy,” he said.
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Mi presented “Effectiveness of Health Information Literacy Training: Health Information Outreach to Homeless Patients at the HOPE Recuperative Care Center.”
She focused on engaging medical students to help improve health literacy of patients experiencing homelessness through community-based research projects.
“Homeless people are vulnerable and underserved,” she said. “Health information literacy training provides an approach to collaboration among faculty, students, and community partners in improving health outcomes of homeless patients and could be implemented as an intervention to help reduce health risks and health disparities that the vulnerable people face in life.”
Homayouni talked about “AI Chatbots in Health,” and focused on the topic of using AI to handle routine inquiries and triage, while humans manage more complex cases and provide emotional support.
“I think it is important to help people keep up with the rapid advancements in the area of AI, particularly after the growing popularity of ChatGPT,” he said. “I also want to ease people's anxiety about AI and the misperceptions about large language models like GPT. These tools can make mistakes and can have biases, just like humans. But researchers are improving these algorithms every day and making them safer and even more accurate than humans.”
For more information, contact Andrew Dietderich, senior marketing specialist, OUWB, at adietderich@oakland.edu.
To request an interview, visit the OUWB Communications & Marketing webpage.
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