Physician, author, and health care reform researcher Martin Shapiro will lead a discussion on the Ithaca campus about the flaws and future of the U.S. health care system.

The event is Monday, Feb. 6 at 4 p.m. in MVR G/T 151 and is sponsored by the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and the Cornell Center for Health Equity with advance registration requested.

Shapiro is a professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he was chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research for 25 years.

He is the author of “Getting Doctored: Critical Reflections on Becoming a Physician” and the recently published “The Present Illness: American Health Care and Its Afflictions.” In that book, Shapiro dissects how a dysfunctional system is shaped, reinforced, and stymies reform. He advocates a sweeping reform agenda to create a more humane, effective, and just system.

Shapiro cautions that overhauling the system is daunting, but a piecemeal approach will be undermined by those who want to maintain the status quo. Those topics will be at the center of the Cornell conversation.

Jim Hanchett is assistant dean for communications for the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy.