The 11th Biennial Conference of the Society for Humanities, Social Science, and Medicine

LIVING QUESTIONS: Theory, Practice, and Activism in a Time of Reckoning

April 11th & 12th, 2026, San Francisco, CA

HOSTED BY The University of California, San Francisco; The University of California, Davis; and The University of California, Berkeley

Registration will open in the New Year 2026

The National Conference for Physician-Scholars in the Social Sciences and Humanities (SHSSM) is a biennial conference that explores the intersections of medicine and the social sciences and humanities. Every two years, trainees, scholars, and clinicians bring their expertise in anthropology, economics, epidemiology, ethics, health policy, history, sociology, literature, and other fields to advance analyses and practices of medicine. 

The theme for the 11th biennial meeting, hosted jointly by the University of California, San Francisco; the University of California, Davis; and the University of California, Berkeley, is “Living Questions: Theory, Practice, and Activism in a Time of Reckoning.” In these times of rising domestic fascism, inhospitable environmental changes, and genocide – and vigorous fights against them – it seems as though there is no good or evil the term “human” cannot contain. What are our questions for this time? And what are our answers? Our particular and shared positionalities as a community of clinician-scholars orient us to our patients and archives, our field sites and discourses, as living questions, and maybe – at our best – to something like an ever-unfolding answer. 

Please email us at info@shssm.net with any questions or concerns, and subscribe to our mailing list for important updates! Also, please join the SHSSM Facebook group here.