Dirk Lafaut 

I am a Belgian general practitioner and philosopher, recently appointed Professor of Global Health at ULB where I am affiliated with POLISSI – Research Centre for Health Policies and Systems – International Health. Alongside my academic role, I maintain a strong connection to clinical practice, which grounds my work in the everyday realities of healthcare.

My academic background spans philosophy, moral sciences, and medicine. I hold a PhD in Philosophy and Moral Sciences, and my research has focused on pressing bioethical questions such as migrants’ access to healthcare, implicit racial bias in medicine, and the decolonization of transnational sexual and reproductive health. Over the past five years, I have taught bioethics as a guest lecturer at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). I also serve on the Hospital Ethics Committee of UZ Jette and on Belgium’s Federal Control and Evaluation Commission for Euthanasia.

I am currently developing projects that explore how implicit racial bias is embedded within institutional cultures. In parallel, I am examining how bioethical analysis can be meaningfully integrated into global health governance.

My work aligns closely with the CHaI themes of culture, health, and illness, particularly in examining how culture, religion, race, and migration status intersect to shape healthcare experiences. I pay close attention to the ways these categories are often conflated in problematic ways—oversimplifying patient identities and reinforcing power imbalances in the clinical encounter. I am passionate about understanding how questions of justice, diversity, and inclusion can be addressed in both global health policy and local clinical encounters.

Through CHaI, I hope to collaborate with colleagues committed to equity-driven approaches to health and to explore how norms and cultures of caregiving shape healthcare experiences across contexts. I am particularly interested in developing mixed-methods and interdisciplinary approaches to these questions.

Outside of academia, I am a father of three with a love for mountain biking and tending our vegetable garden. 

Email: dirk.lafaut@ulb.be

Affiliation: Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium