MICHEL LANDRY, PHD, BSCPT, MSCPT
Professor, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery
Duke University

About the lecture

World War II (WW2) ultimately took the lives of 80 million people and sent another 11 million fleeing for their lives as refugees.  In the aftermath of WW2, the world's leaders professed that 'never again' would we remain silent regarding the statelessness and hopelessness of victims of war and persecution. Tragically, the ravages of war and persecution continue to persist more than 70 years since the end of WW2 in countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Yemen, and Myanmar to name only a few.  According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), over 70 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced in 2019. These figures represent the highest estimates of absolute, and per capita, population displacement numbers ever recorded. Once a refugee and their family arrive in a host country, many have already been exposed to years of forced displacement, prolonged periods of unmet basic needs, exposure to physical trauma, alongside exposure to infectious and other diseases. In this presentation, we provide preliminary data from a large multi-country ERASMUS+ grant regarding the specific and unique competencies necessary for health and rehabilitation providers to be client-centered, effective and efficient in providing quality care to refugee populations in high-income settings.

Lunch will be provided. This event is part of Think Global, a weekly lecture series at the Duke Global Health Institute. It is free and open to the public. Parking for Trent Hall is available in the Duke Medicine Circle Parking Garage, located at 302 Trent Drive. For a map showing the location of the parking garage, please click here.

About the speaker

Michel D. Landry is a Professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, and in the Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI), at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina (USA). Before this, Landry spent seven years as Division Chief of the Duke Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) Division where he successfully led an important rebuilding of the program that has now grown into one of the top physical therapy programs in the United States. Prior to receiving his doctoral degree, he held clinical and senior management positions within the private rehabilitation sector in Ontario (Canada), and within international humanitarian aid and development agencies. Landry is a health policy and health services researcher, where his area of study is the policy implications of the gap between available supply (financial and human resources) and increasing demand for rehabilitation and health services across the continuum of care. He is a Past-President of the Canadian Physiotherapy Association and a former Career Scientist at the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC).  He lectures widely on policy and the political dynamics of rehabilitation, implications for persons with disabilities, and is a provocative advocate for the moral, ethical and economic necessity to ensure accessible and affordable rehabilitation services across the continuum of high, middle and low-income countries. Landry is currently completing his Executive Masters of Business Administration (MBA) at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, where he is also participating in the Health Sector Management Certificate (HSM).