Violence as a Public Health Concern and the Relationship to Gender, Ethnicity/Race and Age

Engaging the Mind will host Marcus L. Martin, Assistant Dean, School of Medicine and Associate Vice President for Diversity and Equity at the University of Virginia, in Fairfax on November 9th at 7 pm at the Fairfax Government Center.  He will discuss Violence as a Public Health Concern and the Relationship to Gender, Ethnicity/Race and Age.  His lecture will include:

The impact of violence on health and well being including death toll, psychosocial distress, and societal cost; the relationship violence plays to gender and ethnic/racial disparities. Dr. Martin’s talk will also cover the differences between unintentional and violent intentional injuries, he will share information on domestic violence, youth violence, suicide and homicide and sexual violence from the "World Report on Violence and Health".

About the Speaker

Marcus Martin
Assistant Dean School of Medicine
Associate Vice President for Diversity and Equity

Dr. Marcus L. Martin is Professor and immediate past chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Virginia.  He held the chair position from July 1996 to December 2006.  Dr. Martin’s Emergency Medicine responsibilities included the adult and pediatric emergency departments, chest pain unit, express care, Pegasus air ambulance, the Blue Ridge Poison Center, paramedic training program, emergency medicine residency program and several emergency medicine fellowship programs.  Dr. Martin is also Assistant Dean, School of Medicine and in July 2006 he was appointed interim Assistant Vice President for Diversity and Equity at the University of Virginia.  Subsequently, Dr. Martin was appointed to Associate Vice President for Diversity and Equity July 2007. 

A native of Covington, Virginia, he earned bachelor’s degrees in pulp and paper technology (1970) and chemical engineering (1971) from North Carolina State University.  Following graduation from college, Dr. Martin worked as a production chemical engineer for WESTVACO in Covington, Virginia.  A member of the charter class of Eastern Virginia Medical School and the first African American graduate, he earned his medical degree in 1976.

Dr. Martin was commissioned by the US Public Health Service and later served as general medical officer of the Gallup Indian Medical Center in New Mexico.  He completed his emergency medicine residency training at the University of Cincinnati in 1981 and held a series of staff and administrative/teaching posts at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh.  He is a founding member of the Board of Visitors of North Carolina State University. Dr. Martin was the first African American to play varsity football at NC State.

A clinical director of the summer program for underrepresented pre-med students, the Summer Medical Dental Education Program, formerly MAAP, Martin has been involved in some aspect of diversity for many years.  He was the first African-American to head a clinical department at UVa He co-chaired the Health System Diversity Council in 2000 and was an inaugural member of the Women’s Leadership Council. 

With a team of UVa health care providers, Martin traveled to Louisiana in September 2005 and February 2006 to serve the disadvantaged populations – black and white – through medical relief efforts subsequent to hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

He was a Board Member for 12 years and past-president of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.  He is past president of the Council of Emergency Medicine Residency Directors.  He received the 1994 Emergency Medicine Residents’ Joseph F. Waeckerle Founders Award.  He established EMCERT (Emergency Medicine Center for Education, Research and Technology) and the Life Saving Techniques course for medical students at UVA using computerized human patient simulation. Dr.  Martin has published widely in journals and has contributed textbook and book chapters in his area of medical expertise. He was recently selected as one of “the top 100 most influential black graduates of NC State University”.