There and Back Again

Tuesday, April 10th, 3:00-4:30pm

A UCSB alumni, Dr. Jason Prystowsky has made a career out of delivering healthcare to underserved populations in locations such as Uganda, Haiti, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Antarctica, Sudan, and the West Bank. Now a local emergency medicine physician through Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, Dr. Prystowsky tells the numerous stories of his winding journey that brought him back to Santa Barbara. Dr. Prystowsky's talk will focus on the wide-range of health disparities he has seen all over the globe and will shed some light on  the larger social injustices that cause disproportionate health outcomes. The talk will also be accompanied by a short presentation by a representative from a local non-profit that Dr. Prystowsky is the current medical director of, Doctors Without Walls. This accompanying talk will address how to apply the humanitarian principles that Dr. Prystwosky learned internationally to local health disparities. 

Jason Prystowsky attended University of California at Santa Barbara where he studied both philosophy and biology. He then went on to get a medical degree and public health degree at Northwestern University in Chicago, IL. Jason trained in emergency medicine at Emory University and Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, GA, where he served as chief resident and a faculty member while doing an ethics fellowship. Jason spent 2 years as the medical director of the medical student run Open Door Community’s Harriet Tubman Free Clinic. After leaving Emory University, he worked on both the Navajo Indian reservation in Arizona, and on the Rosebud Indian reservation in South Dakota. In the global arena, Jason has worked in Uganda, Haiti, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Antarctica, and worked for Medicins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders in Sudan doing nutrition, vaccination campaigns, obstetrics, TB, kala-azar, tropical medicine, and surgical trauma. Jason most recently worked in the West Bank with Loma Linda University and USAID, helping the Palestinian ministry of health develop emergency healthcare infrastructure, disaster preparedness, and train emergency physicians and nurses. Jason embraces the Doctors Without Borders tradition of temoignage and speaks out about what he and other MSF volunteers have seen as doctors. He shares the stories of triumph and challenge about the clinical and public health impact of social injustice, poverty, and social inequalities. Jason is currently clinical faculty in emergency medicine at Loma Linda University in addition to being an emergency physician at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara. He is adjunct faculty at University of California at Santa Barbara and is co-instructor of DWW-SBSM annual UCSB underserved medicine course. He currently is the team leader for the DWW-SBSM communications and the interim medical director.

LiNK: Liberty in North Korea

Tuesday, April 10th, 8:00-9:15pm

IV Theater 2

This Global Awareness Week, LiNK's CalWest Nomads (traveling representatives) will be presenting The People's Crisis, a documentary following the stories of four refugees from their escape into China and along their journey to freedom.  The film also offers a comprehensive overview of the North Korean people's crisis, featuring interviews with North Korean refugees who have escaped, expert analysis, and insight into some of the little-known grass-roots changes that are happening inside the country.  Following the film, the Nomads will speak more deeply about LiNK and opportunities for audience members to get involved!  


Liberty in North Korea was created in 2004 when two passionate individuals learned about the atrocities happening in North Korea and felt a burden to share with the rest of the world.  Educating a group of college students and young leaders about the crisis, together they formed LiNK with the hope of spreading awareness and effecting real change. The organization quickly grew and became a movement of activists empowered by the stories of refugees and motivated by the urgency of the issue. LiNK's work focuses on awareness through mobilizing the grassroots and telling these stories of hope and survival. We meet with governments, NGOs and institutions to advocate for the North Korean people, while working directly with refugees through a network of shelters in China and Southeast Asia - protecting, educating and assisting them to eventually find freedom and empower them to live new lives.