Thank you all for
being here. I want to
start briefly with a
land acknowledgement.
The University of
Wisconsin-Madison occupies
ancestral Ho-Chunk
land, a place that their
nation has called Dejup
since time immemorial.
In an 1832 treaty, the Ho-Chunk
were forced to cede
this territory.
Decades of ethnic
cleansing followed when
both the federal and
state governments
repeatedly but
unsuccessfully sought to
forcibly remove the Ho
-Chunk from Wisconsin.
The history of
colonization informs our
shared future of
collaboration and innovation.
Today, UW-Madison
respects the inherent
sovereignty of the Ho
-Chunk Nation, along with
the 11 other First
Nations of Wisconsin.
So I want to welcome
you to what I think is
a really exciting day
ahead, celebrating
our department's past,
present, and future.
For 75 years, the Department
of Medical History
and Bioethics has been
the home of social
medicine and the medical
humanities at Wisconsin.
It's also been the home
of a commitment to social
justice and medical humanism,
here and abroad, and it's
represented the embodiment
of the Wisconsin idea.
In the next few moments,
I'll address the
Department's past,
present, and future
as a means of setting
the tone for this
fantastic event we
have planned for today.
I want to begin with
a series of thanks to
recapitulate my deep gratitude
I expressed last night.
Thanks to all of you
who are here today.
showing your support
for our department,
especially those of you who
made the trip from far away.
It's just wonderful to
see so many familiar
faces, in some cases
after so long an interval.
Thanks to Leslie Regan for her
fantastic keynotes
talk last night,
to Judy Levitt for
facilitating the introduction,
and to Dean Ahuja
for her kind remarks.
Thanks also to
Dean Golden for his
incredible investment
in our department during
the 18 years of
his tenure in SNPH.
And thanks, perhaps
most of all, to
our indefatigable
department administrator,
Nicole Senter. Nicole is back.
The committee who helped
plan the event, including
Carola Kretemeyer and
Susan Lederer, as well
as Cheyenne Carter and
Keely Mruck, and in
particular, Dana Landris,
who absolutely tirelessly
worked to put together
the successful program.
Without their incredibly hard
work, we wouldn't be here.
Sorry, I'm having a hard time
scrolling through my notes.
Okay.
Well.
Now, many of you will be
familiar with this man,
Erwin Ackerknecht.
He's a pioneering figure
in the history of modern
medicine and is the
founder of our department.
He's a Swiss-German physician.
He came to Wisconsin in 1947,
where he was appointed by
Dean Charles Middleton as
Chair of the History of
Medicine and in 1950 as
Chair of the Department of
the History of Medicine.
His intellectual contribution
to the field is formidable.
He took up the mantle of
William Snow Miller, who was
the Wisconsin physician
who had begun organizing a
reading group of medical
students and clinicians here in
the early 20th century, but
he also pushed the boundaries
of what it meant to study
the history of medicine.
Where for much of its
past, the discipline was
practiced by physicians who
used history to celebrate
the illustrious achievements
of their predecessors,
Ackerknecht
initiated a tradition
of the social
history of medicine.
He set the emergence of
modern clinical practice
in the context of
Enlightenment philosophy,
the politics of the
French Revolution, and the
social upheaval of an
emerging industrial economy.
Fittingly for Wisconsin,
he also addressed
the integration of medicine and
public health in this
budding discipline.
Now this commitment to
the social history of
medicine emerged at
least in part from
Ackerknecht's broader
commitment to social justice.
And I chose an early
photograph of Ackerknecht.
There are much more
recent ones that show him
looking like a staid
professor of the history
of medicine in the mid
-20th century. This is
a photo of him from 1931,
when he was a Trotskyist.
He was, indeed, an
original anti-fascist.
Akrakanek was forced
into exile with
the rise of the
Nazi Party in 1933.
He spent the 1930s
in Paris, studying
ethnography at the Musée
de l'Homme, with Marcel
Maas, Lucien Lévi
-Brulle, and Paul Rivet.
When he landed in the
United States in 1941, he
began studying at Hopkins
with Henry Sigrist,
who is himself deeply
politically committed to
promoting the development
of socialized medicine.
So it's unsurprising then
that in his inaugural
lecture at Wisconsin,
Ackerknecht argued that, quote,
disease and its
treatment are only in the
abstract, purely
biological processes.
Actually, such facts
as whether a person
gets sick at all, what
kind of disease he
acquires, and what
kind of treatment he
receives depend largely
on social factors.
While Aker Connect only
taught at Wisconsin
for a decade before
returning to Europe,
his influence remains
palpable in the tradition
of the social history
of medicine at UW.
Our faculty have included
trailblazers who have
consistently pushed the
boundaries of what it
means to make medical and
public health history.
The development of our
faculty has both mirrored
and modeled some of
the critical directions
SMTH itself has taken in
its history, including
the central role of women
scholars in forging the
department, as well as
the school's greatness,
and indeed, a kind of
broad commitment to
improving the lives of the
people of Wisconsin and
the world by fighting
against health inequity.
Ron Numbers, a mentor
to whom I'll be forever
grateful for taking a chance
on this complete unknown
in 2001, without whom I
wouldn't have a career,
arrived in 1974 and dared
to challenge both religious
and medical orthodoxy
for the rest of his life.
Judy Leavitt, who
came into to a
faculty position
here a year later,
initiated bold traditions
of excellence in
the history of women's
roles in medicine,
the history of
reproductive health,
and the history
of public health.
Much like Ackerknecht, the
cardiologist and historian
Bruce Fye, who I think
just walked in the room,
has demonstrated how
medical innovation often
marches in step with
medical reform movements,
while Hal Cook and
Tom Broman marked a
revival of Ackerknecht's
expertise on Europe.
While Bill Coleman
expanded our understanding
of the social history
of public health.
Vanessa Gamble, who arrived
at Wisconsin in 1989, if
I'm not wrong, is perhaps
the world's foremost expert
on the history of racial
and ethnic health disparity.
Among her other work
in both history and in
bioethics, she chaired the
committee that succeeded
in soliciting a formal
apology from the Clinton
White House for the
Tuskegee Syphilis study.
Greg Mittman established a
new beachhead in the study
of environment and health
with his arrival in 1999,
in addition to bringing
filmmaking to the department's
long list of accomplishments.
He was recently named
to the Humane Order of
African Redemption, one of the
highest honors conferred
by the Republic of Liberia.
Judith Houck built on Judy
Leavitt's legacy and has
become a leader in the
history of women's health.
Our current history
faculty have
added to these
areas of excellence.
Sue Lederer, a past
president of the American
Association for the
History of Medicine, has
written on the history
and ethics of human
experimentation, and her work
informed her co-authorship
of the report of President
Clinton's advisory
committee on the human
radiation experiments.
Pablo Gomez has uncovered
the ways in which
African healers
prodigiously developed
new treatments for both
African and European
clientele in the early
modern Caribbean.
And more recently
he's described how the
Caribbean slave
trade established a
quantification regime of
the human body that most
have argued only
emerged centuries later.
Nicole Nelson has brought
new disciplinary techniques
to the department with
her ethnographies of the
laboratory and the development
of model organisms.
Nelson's new work on the
reproducibility crisis
is taking aim at some
of the most serious
issues facing bench and
clinical science today.
And Dana Landris, our
department's newest hire,
is taking the history of
public health in exciting
new directions with
her brilliant new book
on the cotton industry,
capitalism, and diseases
of deficiency in the Jim
Crow South, which comes
out, I believe, this
spring. Is that correct?
Congratulations, Dana.
So it's no surprise, then.
Let's hope this works.
Yes.
Okay.
It's no surprise, though,
that some of the most
influential historians in our
field have spent time in the
department and have gone
on to shape the discipline.
In addition to Leslie Regan,
who gave our fantastic
keynote last night, and
the fantastic alumni panel
that's coming up right
after I get done speaking,
some of the leading lights
of the field who have
spent time with us have
brought the traditions
of the social history of
medicine to new spaces.
Although we've never had
our own graduate program
here in the department,
we've had the privilege
of working with graduate
students in the history
of science, medicine, and
technology program, as
well as history and other
humanities departments.
And there are far too many
accomplishments to list
individually, but I've
tried to show here a sample
that gives an idea of how
the traditions of medicine
and religion, or the
history of women's and
reproductive health, or the
intersection of environment
and health, or social
disparities in health, or
global health, all of
these traditions that we
forged here in our department,
have been a kind of
driving force for innovation
that have radiated through
the field in the work
of our fantastic alumni.
And you may note, I only
had the option of choosing
one book for everyone. If
I did every book any of
our alumni ever published,
we'd be here all day.
But we are not just
a department of
medical historians,
not by a long shot.
Our bioethicists have
pushed to the forefront
of medical humanism
from the very beginning.
Just over 50 years ago,
thanks to the visionary
leadership of Norm
Faust, our department
launched the first
bioethics program in any
medical school, and
indeed, as far as we
can tell, in any medical
school in the world.
Norm has since carried
the torch for ethics at
Wisconsin, producing original
research in the areas
of clinical and research
ethics in areas as wide
-ranging as genetic
screening and youth sports.
In addition to his
service as chair
of the FDA Pediatric
Ethics Committee,
chair of the American
Academy of Pediatrics
Committee on Bioethics,
and his membership
on President Clinton's
Health Task Force.
And Norm, for this, for all of
this, we owe you a huge thanks.
We couldn't get Acker
Connect to come today.
Norm's influence
has, of course,
shaped Wisconsin as a center of
ethics, scholarship,
and practice.
The luminaries in ethics
who've called Wisconsin
home have included
scholars in the vanguard
of philosophy, law,
religious studies, and
medicine, and who have also
helped us to demonstrate
the critical integration
of medicine and
public health that are
core to UW's mission.
In addition, they have,
as with our historians and
their commitment to promoting
social justice and health
equity, represented the
Wisconsin Idea and Action.
Dan Wickler, who joined the
department in 1975,
is a key example.
A philosopher by
training, Dan served in
the 1980s on the
President's Commission for
the Study of Ethical
Problems in Medicine.
He co-founded the
International Association
of Bioethics and worked
as the first ever staff
ethicist at the World
Health Organization.
His work has had a global
impact with a course he
developed at Harvard's
program on ethical issues in
global health research now
being taught in a dozen
developing countries. Is
Dan here at the moment?
Not yet, okay.
He did register.
From law,
Altasharo is among
the leading experts on
the governance of
emerging biotechnology,
particularly concerning
reproductive and
regenerative medicine,
and served on President
Clinton's National Bioethics
Advisory Commission
and in HHS during the
Obama administration.
I'm starting to
notice a trend here
of our faculty
working in Washington.
Linda Hogel was the first
anthropologist to join
our department as part
of the stem cell cluster
in the early 2000s,
bringing the ethnography
of tissue engineering
and stem cell research
as well as organ and
tissue procurement to
discussions of the ethics
of regenerative medicine.
Dan Hausman, an expert
in the philosophy of
economics, has helped
us think about some of
the fundamental questions
of the valuing of
health and the ethics of
using cost effectiveness
as a tool for designing
health policy.
Our current generation
of ethicists have
unsurprisingly
capitalized on this rich
history of deep engagement
with the foundational
issues of health and
health care today.
Pilar Osorio, trained in law
and medical microbiology,
is a path-breaking
research ethicist with
expertise in the governance
of large bioscience
projects, including the
Human Genome Project, as
well as the use of race
in biomedical research.
She served both the
Clinton and Obama
administrations as
well, and is an expert
consultant in human
subjects protections.
Rob Streifer brought an
entirely new dimension to our
department with his deep
research in deep scholarship
in animal research ethics,
as well as the ethics of
agricultural biotechnology,
which I think we all can
recognize are critical
issues at the intersection of
medical school research
at a land-grant university
in a state with a long
tradition of animal husbandry.
Gretchen Schwartzy is
at the forefront of two
fields as an outstanding
vascular surgeon and
clinical ethicist. She's
now engaged in essential
work on redesigning
conversations between surgeons
and their patients on
informed consent to produce
better and more satisfying
surgical outcomes.
Paul Kelleher, who
trained with our former
colleague Dan Wickler
before coming to Wisconsin,
has continued in the
tradition of global health
ethics, having just
published his first book,
The Social Cost of
Carbon to Great Fanfare.
It's a remarkable
engagement with perhaps the
leading public health
threat of our time,
and that is, of course,
our changing climate.
And Corolla Kreitmeier,
who joined us in
2018, has excelled
in multiple domains.
Her fascinating research
on neuroethics and
clinical ethics, her clinical
ethics consulting work,
and her work with the
state of Wisconsin at the
height of the COVID-19
pandemic to develop policy
for ventilator allocation,
as well as with UW
Health to develop a policy
for Vaccine Allocation
represent the epitome
of the Wisconsin idea.
Since 2023, I have had
the unbelievable privilege
of getting to chair this
fantastic department.
It's impossible to list
all of our contributions
to SMTH, the University
of Wisconsin, and
beyond, but I will take
the time to list a few.
I've been fortunate to
inherit some fantastic
traditions that our
faculty have developed,
including the Bioethics
Symposium, launched
in 2009 and continuing
through the present.
Topics have
included things like
assisted suicide, the
rationing of care,
the obesity epidemic,
gender-affirming care,
race and health disparity,
artificial intelligence,
and even last year, the
staged reading of a play
by Dr. Kreitmeier about
neural implants, personality,
and relationships.
So you see we're
not really afraid to
take on some of the
really tough issues.
For this spring, and what's
sure to remain uncontroversial,
we're planning a symposium
on vaccine ethics.
Can't wait to see
how that turns out.
Okay.
We also have Drs. Kelleher
and Kreitmeier to thank
for developing one of
the most successful
pedagogical experiments in
our department's history.
And this is the path of
distinction in bioethics.
The Pod B graduated a cohort
of one, modestly, in 2023,
but it currently enrolls
75 students and that's
expanded to be among the most
popular pods in the SMTH.
I've done a little bit of
quick math. We just sort
of extrapolate from the
number of medical students
enrolled in pod B compared
to the general med student
population and we compare
that to say the undergraduate
population of the College
of Letters and Science.
If this were a program
in Letters and Science
it would be enrolling
over 2,200 students
and would be the second
most popular program
in the school, right
behind computer science.
So well done, Paul and Corolla.
Also within SMPH, our colleague
Nicole Nelson has been
tireless in her work to help
build CHASM, the Collective
for Humanism, Arts, and
Storytelling in Medicine,
about which we'll hear
much more in just a bit.
CHASM is a space for connecting
clinicians... Whoops,
dang it. Sorry. I'm a
Mac person, so I'm out
of my element here.
CHASM is a space that
connects clinicians,
scholars, and students who
share a mutual interest
in the medical humanities
in areas including
narrative medicine, graphic
medicine, history,
music, and philosophy.
The collective has blossomed
in its first few years,
now including nearly 50
faculty and staff who are
committed to the mission
of humanistic education,
writing, and creative
expression as fundamental to the
mission of medical education,
another huge success.
In the realm of
social medicine, we're
expanding our ties to
the Center for Health
Disparities Research
through the investigation of
historical foundations
of health inequity.
Here Dana Landress
has been an absolutely
critical player where
she's been engaged in team
teaching and grant writing
with Center faculty.
Beyond SMPH, we've
played important roles in
the development of a
number of cross-campus
initiatives in research,
teaching, and service.
A number of our faculty, for
example, have been deeply
involved with the Global
Health Institute since
its foundation and have
been instrumental in the
development of the Global
Health major and certificate
programs which enroll over
600 students across campus.
Likewise, our faculty
have played key roles in
the development and
administration of the
Health and Humanities
Certificate, which helps
undergraduates understand
the complex meanings
of health and illness and
how political, social,
and cultural factors
shape those meanings.
This is just a glimpse
of the kinds of
work in which our
faculty are engaged.
What's critical is
that this work has had
a demonstrable impact
on our students.
So I want to close
with a few comments our
students have shared that
indicate how central our
mission is to the
integration of medicine and
public health, as well
as the meaning of what it
means to practice medicine
in the 21st century.
One alumna who practices
in Milwaukee tells
us that learning about
the history of social
medicine in the context
of global and public
health was my first
exposure to what we
now call the social
determinants of health.
That perspective directly
inspired me to pursue an
MPH in global health, as
well as a medical degree,
where I focused my career
on caring for immigrant
and refugee communities
who face many of the
same structural challenges
seen in global contexts.
Another former
student, who's now an
associate professor
of epidemiology at
a leading public
health school notes,
these courses helped
me realize that my real
interest was in
understanding the underlying
causes, emphasis hers,
of why and how diseases
spread in populations,
rather than focusing solely
on the biologic mechanisms
of transmission.
I think now more than ever,
medical humanities courses
are essential to anyone
interested in careers in
medicine or public health.
Learning these topics
has made me a better
researcher and public
health practitioner.
And finally, a family
practitioner who
took courses with us
describes the humility
that comes with a
humanistic education.
A few years ago, I missed
a critical diagnosis.
I was devastated, and like
many physicians who've
committed medical errors,
I felt an overwhelming
surge of shame, imposterism,
and the pull of burnout.
But because I had heard
the vulnerable stories of
respected mentors in
medical humanities spaces.
I felt brave enough to
apologize for my mistake.
My patient gave me the
gift of grace, and I still
care for him and his
family, most recently
helping his daughter
through a debilitating fear.
I write about my
experiences as a doctor
because it helps me
stay grounded in the
purpose and meaning of
the work of medicine.
This is, I think, why we
do the kind of work we do.
In our research
on the social and
cultural dimensions of
sickness and health,
in our teaching
of undergraduates,
in our teaching of
graduate students, in
our teaching of health
sciences students,
as well as in our
service to the school,
the university, the
state, and our fields.
I can't think of a
better way to celebrate
this department's
remarkable legacy than to
provide a kind of insight
into its present and its
future, which today's
panels will show in detail.
So with that, I
have nothing to do
but say thank you,
and on, Wisconsin.
May I now please invite
our alumni panelists
to join us at the
front? Thanks. Good
morning, everyone.
Thank you. Can
you hear me? Is
the mic working?
Terrific.
It is my great pleasure
to introduce the alumni
that we have brought
back for the first
panel of what I think
will be a fantastic day.
So let me just offer a
few brief introductory
remarks, and then I
will hand it over to our
panelists who will say a
bit about their academic
trajectories, their time
here at UW, and then we'll
have some time for
questions and reflections.
To begin, Dr. Ayo Adigbete
earned his PhD in the
history of medicine,
science, and technology
from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison in 2025.
He is currently a
postdoctoral research
associate at Brown University,
where he is developing
his dissertation into
a book manuscript.
His project examines the
place of African medical
practitioners and the public
in the development and
institutionalization of
biomedical knowledge and
technologies in colonial and
post-colonial West Africa.
Broadly, his research
examines the place of Africa
and its diasporic communities
in global environmental
health. His work is
forthcoming in the
Bulletin of the History of
Medicine, congratulations,
and the Journal of
Environmental History.
Dr. Emer Lucey is a historian
of American medicine
and disability whose
work focuses on childhood
development disability in the
recent past. Dr. Lucey draws
upon medical history
and disability history
interventions to explore the
construction of authority,
meaning, and identity for
disability self-advocates,
parents, and family
members, and professionals.
Dr. Lucey's book
project, The Making of
a Disability, Autism
and Down Syndrome in
American History,
under contract with
Columbia University
Press, congratulations,
examines the formation
of medical and
popular understandings,
experiences,
and Narratives of
Childhood Disability.
She's also the co-author
with Dr. Michael Udell of
A Way of Being Human, Autism
in Science and Society.
Dr. Katie Robinson
is an assistant
professor of endocrinology,
diabetes, and
metabolism at the
University of Iowa.
Dr.
Robinson completed
her MD-PhD at
the University of
Wisconsin in 2016.
Her PhD work in the
history of Medicine,
Science, and Technology
examined the history
of the fat acceptance
movement and examined
the consequences of
medicalizing obesity.
She completed internal
medicine training and
endocrinology fellowship
at the University
of Iowa, where she is
now a faculty member.
Her research examines a
wide array of topics in
endocrinology, including
patient experience of
weight stigma in healthcare
and clinical outcomes
in diabetes. She currently
provides clinical
care to patients with
obesity, diabetes, and
other endocrine conditions
at the University
of Iowa and the Iowa City
Veterans Hospital VA.
Dr. Travis Weiss is a historian
of medicine and culture
whose work examines how
Americans have expressed
their social, medical, and
technological anxieties
through food, health
practices, and the body. He
graduated from our program
in 2020 and is currently a
visiting assistant professor
of sociology and public
health at New Mexico State
University and previously
taught at the history
department at Marist University.
his book health freaks
america's diet champions and
the specter of chronic
illness published with unc
press in 2024 explores the
post-war diet movement as
both cultural critiques
of modern medicine and
reflections of growing concern
over chronic disease and
environmental risk and
last but most certainly not
least dr shannon withicum
graduated from the university
of Wisconsin and the
History of Medicine in
2010. She is now an Associate
Professor of History at
the University of New
Mexico, where she teaches
courses in the history of
American medical profession,
contagious disease, gender,
sex, and reproduction.
Her first book, entitled Lost,
Miscarriage in 19th Century
America, was published in 2018.
Her research focuses on
reproductive health topics such
as pregnancy, miscarriage,
and abortion, and has
appeared in numerous academic
and popular publications.
Her current project
explores the development of
prenatal care in early 20th
century America and its roots
in racism, eugenics, and
medical professionalism.
Welcome everyone.
So I think let's begin by
having everyone reflect
just a little bit on your
trajectory, your time
here at Madison, and what
your work in the history
of medicine and bioethics
in particular meant as
it came to bear on your
professional development.
You have to start with the
one who recently graduated.
Thank you for having me here.
I feel so honored to join
in the celebration today.
Reflecting on my
training at UW-Madison,
I think the place to start will
be how I came to
join the program.
It was in the wake of
the 2015 Ebola outbreak,
and I had volunteered
at what was
called Ebola Corps in Nigeria,
and I had questions
about the kinds of
representations of Africa
that I see in the media,
but also the fact
that the kinds of work
that we did on the
ground, you know,
is not also represented
in, you know,
in the public spaces,
right? And so I
wanted to know more
about, you know,
how, and I think in particular,
a certain woman
called Stella Adadevo,
you know, had died
of the Ebola outbreak
because she
physically restrained,
using our body to restrain
the person who had
imported the disease,
you know, to Nigeria.
And while we were
being trained, one of
the else workers that
trained us was like,
well, you know,
don't try to, when you go
out there to, you know,
do the work that you're
going to be doing, don't
try to be heroes because
Nigeria is not going
to remember, you know,
this woman who had died.
And that sort of stayed
with me. I don't know if
Pablo or Rick would remember
that by the time I shared
my statement of purpose
when I applied, I actually
said that that was my aha
moment, you know, to know
that this is what I want
to do. And then so when I
came into the program, I
was really confused because,
you know, I had to read
all these kinds of, you
know, books about, you
know, other things that I
didn't think I was, you
know, was any of my concern.
But I was lucky to have,
you know, professors who
were just, you know, very
kind to me. You know,
it was very tough. I
thought, by the way, I
thought I would be, you
know, talking to, like,
majorly grad students.
So, but I think that, and I
was saying this yesterday,
that it's really the
people, you know, for me
at the department. It's
majorly the people that
makes the place, you know,
more than the geography or
any other thing. And so I
feel incredibly grateful,
you know, to have worked,
you know, with Pablo,
with Rick, and with my advisor,
Greg Mitzman, who's not here.
And, you know, Dana,
you know,
sometimes I feel
like maybe she's been
here for like a
decade or something.
You know, she came and then we
also, you know,
worked together.
The HSMT community was
like also of immense help.
so I'll just say two
things regarding how the
skill set that I now,
how I use the skill sets
in my current work position
is one in the summer
I worked with the general
of African history
as part of this wonderful
program that the history
department does where you
have to do this internship
and I think the initiative
is in preparation
to the mess that the
job market is right now.
And then I realized that
working with the journal,
which is like the topmost
journal in African
history, I didn't really
need to learn anything
freshly. Whether I did
a podcast with them,
I did like helping
out with coordinating
meetings, you know, I
was reading manuscripts,
right, and I don't think
that I've even defended
my dissertation yet,
but all of the skills
that I learned and the
community that I built
with the Journal of
African History, you know,
I felt like it was too
easy. It's not like I,
you know, so it's all of
those skills that, you know,
that I developed over time
over the course of seven
years that I felt like helped
me through that program,
that, you know, internship.
And I know that, you know,
I did well because they
did not have me like a
guest, as a guest podcaster,
but also they are sending
me like, you know,
books to review or
connect. I'm also
connecting them to, like,
you know, other grad
students that can help
with book reviews.
And finally, at Brown,
one of the tasks that I
immediately have to do is that,
so I was employed as this,
you know, West African,
you know, postdoctoral
research associate,
And then they have, like,
four or five graduate students
whose research is on
Nigeria or Ghana in West
Africa. But they have African
professors who are, like,
South Africanists or, you
know, Middle Eastern. And
so I happen to be the only,
you know, one who has,
like, I guess, debt in West
Africa. So immediately, I
turn into this mentor, right,
for these grad students,
and I'm, like, having to
lean in on the experiences,
the kind of mentorship
that I received at UW
-Madison, you know, to start
engaging with the students.
So I'll stop there
for now. Yeah.
Well, thank you, Dana,
for that introduction,
and Ayo for getting
this started.
I came to UW having
become interested in
the history of medicine
as an undergrad.
I think this may be kind
of a common experience that
I thought I wanted to be
pre-med, and then I took one
history of medicine class,
and I was like, oh, no,
no, no. I don't want to be
a physician. I want to study
the physicians. And so I
came to UW, and one of the
very first classes I took
in my first semester was
the last class taught by
Judy Leavitt and Ron Numbers,
the incredibly
titled Good and Great
Books in the History
of American Medicine.
And it was up to us
to determine which
books were good and
which books were great.
And that was such a phenomenal
introduction, not only
to the field, but also to
the historiography and to
kind of the characters that
make up the department and
the field at large. It was
attended not only by other
grad students, but lots of
faculty came to that class.
and it was such a great
look into the history of
this department as people
reflected on you know we read
books written by a lot of
faculty we learned kind of
all the backstory of the
research that went into
things the um the gossip on
other historians um which as
i think historians tend to
love gossip because we're
interested in people and those
stories are are sometimes
better than the books
themselves um and from there
um a few other grad students
and i wanted to keep
this going and we started
the um william snow miller
medical uh history journal
club um and we i feel so lucky
that i was able to have
um to be part of kind of
this long lineage of historians
uh here who are really
invested in the field, in
the future of the field, in
understanding kind of the
past and where it's going.
And we were able, we kept
that going, Travis and
I did it for a while.
We kept that going for a
pretty long time that we
had a place to kind of think
about the history of
medicine just outside of,
like, what are you reading
for prelims or what
do you need to read to
get to the next seminar?
um to me the sense of
community is what really
stands out in MHB that
this is a group of people
who really care about um
about each other not just
as scholars but also as
people with lives and
want to see people succeed
and thrive um it's I
didn't realize how unusual
that was that we not only
have a weekly brown bag,
a monthly colloquium,
that everybody actually
attends those events,
that the grad
students would get
together every Friday
for happy hour,
and that there is a real
concerted effort to cultivate
community that has huge
intellectual benefits
as well as being important
socially and culturally.
As you know people
who, I'm an American
historian, but having friends
who are working across
regions, across
disciplines, is such a kind
of enriching thing in
my intellectual life
and hugely beneficial to
the work that I do. One
of the things I didn't
realize when I started
at UW was that I'm not
just a historian of
medicine, but I need to
be a disability historian.
And disability history
is, similarly to the
history of medicine,
something where it
really behooves you to
be interdisciplinary,
that you have to be
able to draw upon
this broader field of
disability studies.
And that's something that
also started for me kind
of right from the start at
UW. One of the other classes
I took my first semester
was a history of global
health class with Rick
Keller where I was the only
grad student, which meant
that I met with Rick for
two hours every week and at
the end of our discussion,
he would just kind of look
around at his overflowing
bookshelves and pick a
book or two that I had
to read for the next week.
and often these were not
books in medical history we
read in medical anthropology
we read theory we were
looking kind of beyond
just a sort of narrowly
defined field and I think that
is huge and then when I was
later realizing I needed
to be able to read beyond
just a kind of narrow
there there is no narrow
definition of disability
history really so I needed
to be able to read disability
studies coming from
anthropology, from sociology,
from feminist studies to
be able to understand what
my work was and what I
was in communication with.
So these are, just very
briefly, kind of the things
when I reflect upon the
skills and the training at
UW. Those are the, that,
to me, is what stands out.
Well, first of all, I want
to thank you so much for
having me here today.
I'm very grateful for the
opportunity to reflect on my
training and my time at UW.
So my path through
academia has been somewhat
different from my
colleagues as an MD-PhD.
I will say that one
of the overriding
challenges I faced over
the course of my life
is being interested
in too many things.
So I came to UW-Madison
interested in both
medical practice and
the history of medicine.
the first two years of my
training were in the basic
sciences and medical
school as I was telling Dr.
Judith Hauck as I walked
in I had flashbacks of
exams when I walked into
this room it was very
traumatizing but then when
I turned to my my PhD years
it was really a sense of
excitement that I brought
to my studies I felt
immersed in kind of the
historical and cultural world
that I wanted to explore.
I initially brought to the
table, I would say, too
many interests. I was
interested in global and
imperial health, and I did
a field exam with Brett
Keller. I was also interested
in gender and women's
studies and did a field
exam with Dr. Judith Houck.
Reflecting back on
those experiences,
but the field exams
were very challenging
and they were
very tough for me.
And thinking back on
it, at times I got hard
criticism and feedback, but
having moved further along
in my career, I am so
grateful for that tough
feedback because as someone
who mentors students
now and mentors medical
students and all types
of students, I think it's
harder to give that tough
feedback than it is to
just give someone a pat
on the back and let them
continue on their way.
So that's one of
my big takeaways
from graduate school here.
I then went on to take
Dr. Susan Lederer's
class on fat and
thin, and that course
dramatically shaped
my interests in terms
of the field of study
I would move into.
I had always, as a youngster
growing up in the United
States, watched my mother
dieting, watched diet culture
around me, and imbibed these
very standards for women
about their bodies and how
they should look and how
they should act. And so I
found the fat acceptance
movement to be particularly
fascinating and eye-opening.
And the works that I
read really challenged me
to think about bodily
norms and bodily standards
and how we define sick
and healthy bodies.
So working with Sue Lutterer,
I completed my dissertation
on the history of the
fat acceptance movement.
I would also say there's
always a little part of
me that's a contrarian,
that likes to consider
the unusual arguments that
no one else quite buys.
I would say that Sue was
an ever-patient mentor.
She made time for me.
She would bring me into
her office, and she would
gently and kindly nudge
me along that path
toward dissertation
completion. And I remember
she gave me a book, How
to Write Your Dissertation
in 15 Minutes a Day.
And then she did confide
in me that I could not, in
fact, actually write my
dissertation in 15 minutes a
day, but that the title was
meant to get me over the
hesitation and anxiety one
feels when one opens up the
computer and that white
screen is flashing at you.
So I valued her
mentorship tremendously.
i would also say that she
pushed me to present my
work to medical audiences
which at the time i found
somewhat terrifying because
i found the the form
of knowledge and the form
of presentation to be so
dramatically different
you know i was to present
a powerpoint slide i was
to do a journal club with
a medical journal article
and i was to do a poster
presentation and i in
retrospect in fact, hilariously
botched several of
these presentations. I
remember that it was supposed
to be a poster presentation
and I didn't know how
to turn a paper, a
historical paper into a
poster presentation. So I took
thumbtacks and I pinned
up little sheets of paper.
And, you know, looking
back on it retrospectively,
I really should have
done a better job
adapting my work for
a different audience.
But you can only learn through,
I won't call them failures,
through impartial
successes, is how
to make yourself
better over time.
So I've reflected back on
those moments quite frequently.
After completing my PhD,
I would say that life became
a bit of a whirlwind for
me. At that point in time,
I had a two-year-old, and
I was going back to medical
school after a six-year,
yes, that's the right
math, six-year break from
being in clinical practice.
It was really an all
-engaging effort to come
back up to speed clinically.
I feel, I think, as most
physicians do, that my
first duty is to my
patients, and I have to be
providing the highest
quality care that I can. So
research fell by the
wayside for a while for me.
When I went on to do my
internal medicine training
at the University of Iowa,
I didn't do any kind
of research my intern
year. That's also a
very challenging year.
But later on in my
residency, see, I had the
opportunity to start
doing some research again.
It was not what I would call
classical historical research.
I started doing some work
on weight stigma. And to me,
weight stigma ties in very
closely with the history
of the fat acceptance movement.
Because although I didn't
fully buy into the
arguments, the medical and
scientific arguments coming
from the fat movement, I really
felt they had a very powerful
message about what it
means to live in a larger
body in American society and
how that shapes daily
experiences. So I felt that I
was able to take that background
and take that knowledge
and to, I guess, redevelop
some of these concepts
around weight stigma. So I
did some survey work and also
some qualitative work. And
using qualitative methodologies
I was able to leverage
some of the oral history
methodologies I had developed
as a graduate student.
So currently I continue to
do work on weight stigma
using survey methodologies
and qualitative methodologies
but never able to quite
confine myself and to rein in
those interests. I'm also
doing a bit of work in the
field of clinical research
and collaborating with
mentors across the translational
spectrum in biomedicine.
I do hope to someday
return to a more
classically historical
perspective.
I would say that one thing
I've also learned along
the way in my training,
and I think part of this
comes from being in an MD
-PhD program here, is that
you can develop interests
and develop a research
community, and even if your
life takes you away from
that community and that
research and a winding path,
you can find your way
back to that community and
back to those mentors and
reinvigorate those ties.
And I'd like to close
by, again, expressing my
gratitude for all of
my mentors and my deep
appreciation for the
training I received here.
All right, thank you
so much for inviting
me and the rest
of the panelists.
I'm going to try and
improvise on the fly some
things that haven't been said
yet, but I want to second
everything that's been
said so far. I mean,
things about community,
about mentorship, everything
that's been said so far
is also true for myself.
Let's start with how I managed
to come to this program.
I feel like this is such an
interesting field because
everyone does come to it
from different directions.
It's not the typical
undergrad major that naturally
leads into graduate school,
so you do have people
coming from the sciences,
you know, other sorts
of directions. And I think
that makes it inherently
a sort of special kind
of space, right? We're a
merry band of misfits just
from the get-go, right?
So speaking to that,
when I first went
to undergrad, I was
intent on theater.
That was my main passion.
And my parents weren't
thrilled with me going into
an arts degree. and so you
know they were they were
imagining me being unemployed
and starving um and so
they told me that i had
to get a second major and
so what i was uh similarly
to emer i knew that i i
had an interest in science
pardon me science um uh but
i really wasn't interested
in doing lab work i
didn't like the actual doing
of science, but I'm really
interested in thinking
about science. And so I
created my own major in
philosophy of science as an
undergrad at a school with
no philosophy program even.
It was ill-advised, I
think, but here I am.
So it led me, though, to my
first master's degree which
was at indiana university
in the history of science
um history and philosophy
of science pardon me so i
mean i i was primarily
interested in philosophy until i
went to that program and
realized oh actually i kind of
hate this um i do like
thinking about science but i
hate philosophy and you know
no offense to anybody in
here with those predilections
but um it wasn't for me.
I managed to sort of get
more into the history
side. My academic
advisor, Sandy Gliboff,
was a historian of
19th century biology.
And so he had sort of taken
me under his wing and be
like, you know, maybe history
would be a better path
for you. And so I started
taking more history classes.
I took my first ever history
of medicine class there.
And I also hated it. It
was terrible. And it was
mainly because it
was like all British
historiography. And so it
was just like thinking about
how does one write the
history of medicine? We
weren't dealing with any
practical stories. There
was nothing, there was
no content, right? We
weren't thinking about
patients or practice or
diseases or anything, you
know, that we've seen in
the various
presentations that we've
had so far, the content
of people's work
that's come out of
this department.
Um,
and so when I reached the
end of the road in that
program, I was searching
around for another program. Um,
I was Googling around and
I found that there was
someone named Sue letter
who taught a class on the
history of nutrition. I
was getting more interested
in this and I applied to
this program and, and,
um, thankfully, thankfully
I was admitted because
it has absolutely shaped
my identity permanently.
The reason why I
got into nutrition,
similarly to you, Katie, right,
is my parents. I realized that,
I mean, my parents are hardcore
vegans. They want
to live forever.
You know, very
interesting sort of folk.
I was reading all these
books, like Io mentioned, and
I didn't see anybody like
my parents. So I was like,
you know what, maybe you
know maybe that deserves
a second glance um and then
under sue's leadership she
you know encouraged me
rather than you know sort of
saying well you know those
personal stories maybe
we could back away do
something more academic no she
she really let me lean into
into thinking about my my
own experience um and
the the sort of bizarre
communities that came out of
the woodwork um in my research
um and i would say that
that's that's one of the
primary things that i learned
um especially from sue
is sort of like how to
recognize my own experiences as
being academically valuable
uh in that way but also
like how to tell a good
story um how to look for
those like really interesting
little juicy details and
like tell a fascinating
fascinating story that's going
to hook people just because
the characters are so
interesting, just because
the phenomena that, you
know, I mean, humans are
such rich people. We do such
interesting things, and that
deserves to be captured.
And, you know, I would say
she was also very helpful
in thinking, in getting
me to think about not just
writing for an academic
audience but also thinking
about um how i could speak
to more of a public audience
right a non academic um
specific audience right and
i think that that's really
important as we heard
yesterday uh the way that
our field kind of reaches out
and touches people um
where they're at right as
patients um as people with
family members people who
are struggling with all
kinds of uh relatable things.
Um,
so then I guess the
other, the other half that
I wanted to kind of
touch on that would be
different from what
people have mentioned so
far is teaching. Uh, I
think one of the major
takeaways, uh, well, most
of what I've been doing
since I graduated in
2020 is teaching. Um,
I was at Marist university,
uh, teaching a five,
five for several years and
now I'm teaching a four,
four. So I've taught dozens
at this point, dozens of
classes, each with, you
know, 30 to 100 students. So
I mean, I've taught many,
many, many, many, many
people, and almost never
in the history of medicine.
I rarely get to teach the
actual discipline that
I was trained in. But I
think this is one of the
great things about the
department is because the
field is so inherently
interdisciplinary, I was able
to kind of draw on my
training for everything
from, right, when I was
at Marist, I was teaching
History 101, a survey from
1500 to now, right? And
I was like, well, I don't,
I was never, I never had
a history degree, so what
do I know about this?
But I managed to do it
through using history of
medicine examples and
thinking about what are the
broader patterns of global
history, you know, if we
start thinking about diseases
and, you know, materials
and all the kinds of
things that we talk about.
In my current two
departments, right, I
teach in sociology and
public health at NMSU.
Neither of them are
a history department,
so I don't get to
teach my field.
But nevertheless, I'm now
teaching about sports, food,
human sexuality, personal
health and wellness, there's
such a rich undercurrent
of medical history that
I'm able to draw from in the
way, I mean, just the way
that I think about these
issues is so fundamentally
different than other scholars
who may have been trained
in other fields. And I
just, I mean, thank you for
that, right? I think it's
absolutely invaluable for
me, and all the people in
this room have helped make
that a reality. But I also
think it speaks to just
the tremendous breadth and
importance of this field,
the way that it, I mean,
undergirds almost every key
issue that you could imagine
that we're facing today.
So anyway, I don't know
if that necessarily
made as much sense
as I hoped, but
I'm going to end it
there. Thank you.
Thank you. I definitely want
to thank Dana for inviting me.
This has been a really
interesting exercise in thinking
about sort of what I got
out of my time here at
Wisconsin and how it's affected
what I've been doing ever
since. I also find it
interesting the problem with
being last on this panel
is that everything someone
said I was like oh I could
say something like that too.
So I hope it's not too
confusing like Trevor said.
I think the farther I get
in my career trajectory,
the more and more I
value what I got here and
see history of science,
medicine, technology, and
especially the medical
history and bioethics
faculty as creating this
extremely special place.
That became somewhat clear
for me at the very beginning
because, like some of
us, I thought I was going
into medicine. and I was a
biological sciences major
in my undergrad. I went
and worked in labs and
gave cancer to mice and did
all sorts of crazy things
and decided that wasn't
the path for me, and it was
sort of, well, I'm too
old for it to be a Google
search, so it was sort of
a Yahoo search, I guess,
and discovered that there
was this thing called
medical history. I was
completely blown away
that this was something
that I could study,
and so I sent out a
bunch of applications
and got no's from
most of the places.
And one university even
responded, I think you should
probably take a history
class first because I
had taken no history in my
undergraduate education.
However, Wisconsin decided
to take a chance on me,
and I am forever grateful
for that. There's something
that the medical history
faculty in particular
saw in my application that
made them think, maybe
this is someone that can
succeed in this department.
And so from the very
first day, I now realize
that I was given this
sort of opportunity
and was allowed to
sort of really say, I
don't understand what
history is. I don't
understand how to do
history. Can you tell me?
Now that I'm an educator
and I have a lot of
graduate students come
in, I realize that there's
so many of them come
in thinking, I'm
supposed to know X about
history, and so I can't
ask questions or sort
of display my ignorance.
Like Emer, I did get to
take a Great Books class
also with Judy Leavitt and
Ron Numbers. I think it
was just called Great Books
at that point, though.
But my first semester, I also
got to take historiography
with Ron Numbers. And
the two things I learned
about Ron Numbers is, one, he
creates the longest reading
list I think I ever had
in my graduate education.
And like Imer mentioned,
he does like to tell you
a lot about every single
author you're reading.
And one of the things
I now sort of reflect
upon is that while
it was extremely
enjoyable as a graduate
student to hear,
and I definitely think we
characterized it as gossip
at the time, I think it
has also influenced me
in how I do my teaching
now in terms of talking to
my students about
positionality of historians.
and you need to sort of
understand who that person
is and their life experiences
in order to understand
sort of how that shapes
their history, rather.
When I came into the University
of Wisconsin in 2003,
I was really excited at
the chance to work with
Judy Leavitt and Judy Haug
because I knew I wanted
something to do. I wanted to
study something to do with
women's history. I also,
for some reason, was firmly
sort of dedicated to not
working on reproduction.
I, for some reason,
thought it was going to be
boring. It's been done. No,
I'm not going to do that.
Fast forward two years,
and I'm writing an
MA thesis on women
who were admitted to
the Mendota State
Hospital, which is a
mental health facility
just across the lake.
Women who were admitted
in the late 19th
century, where their cause
of disease was listed
as childbirth. So the
whole anti-reproduction
thing went out the
window pretty quickly.
I then moved on to working
to developing a dissertation
topic on the history of
miscarriage and specifically
in the 19th century and
following actually both
Judy and Judy's model I
knew from the very beginning
that I wanted this to
include women's experiences I
wanted to find women who in
the 19th century were talking
about their miscarriage
experiences and sort of
fitted in with medical
understandings of miscarriage and
the sort of role of doctors
in miscarriage in the
19th century. And at my
dissertation proposal defense,
Judy Levitt said, you know,
I did that book similar
for childbirth, but it
was my second book. It
was not my dissertation,
and I'm a little worried
about if you're going to
be successful at this.
I was happy that the
final product proved her a
little bit wrong and then
I was able to find these
uh these personal accounts
but it was definitely
sort of at the influence
of this mentorship of
both Judy Hawk and Judy
Levitt that sort of uh guided
me into really valuing
this social history um
like Trevor I think or
sorry Travis like Travis
um I think also what I
saw in the classroom here
has extremely shaped my
own approach to teaching.
I was super, super
lucky to be hired as
a medical historian
at my current
position at the
University of New Mexico.
I did what I think a lot
of junior scholars do,
which is I don't want to
say necessarily steal from
other people's syllabi.
Instead, I like to sort
of think of it as I'm
carrying on the legacy of
University of Wisconsin's
medical history teachings.
And when, you know, was
asked to sort of say, give
us five classes that you
can teach right off the
bat, I instantly sort of
said, okay, well, I can do
a Women in Health in
American History that I took
from Judy Howe, who took
over from Judy Leavitt. I
can do a history of public
health, just like Judy
Leavitt. I can do a history
of childbirth, just like
Judy Leavitt. And I can
do a history of mental
health, just like the class
I took with Rick Keller.
And so I like to sort of
think that the influences of
both the topics, but also
the style of teaching that
I got here, I'm spreading
throughout the Southwest.
um finally I think something
again that I was thinking
more and more as I
reflected about what it was
about Wisconsin that sort
of affected what I do uh in
my current uh position and
my current interests is
I think because of this really
close connection between
medical history and the
medical school um there
there is this sort of just
assumption that of course
the history that we're
studying is going to help us
understand the current
world and I think this is a
viewpoint that I'm now working
with lots of historians
who came from lots of
different backgrounds and
different institutions that
I think was not an assumption
for many of my colleagues
right they sort of
would do a history project
and were told like oh at
the end of the book say
something about the modern
world whereas I think the
the people that I was that
were mentoring me and the
people that I was taking
classes with here made that
a much stronger emphasis.
And so that it's in my
current project where I am
looking at the development
of prenatal health care
in the United States and
have been surveying all
of these infant mortality
studies that were carried
out in the 19-teens and
1920s and looking at how
specifically within these
huge studies that are
looking at why infants
were dying and can we use
prenatal care to help prevent
that, how race was very
interestingly constructed
within those studies,
right? And as soon as I
started thinking about it, I
went, of course, that's
where I'm going, right, is
to get to today where we
have these huge racial
disparities in infant and
maternal health and mortality.
The final thing I want to
talk about that is sort
of a recent project that
I've been involved in that
is very much affected by
the combination, the mix,
my exposure to bioethics,
even though I never took
a bioethics course, is
that about two years ago I
got involved with a group
who sort of scholars at
about my stage, either
assistant or associate
professors, who were coming
to terms with the fact that
one of the things that was
sort of missing from our
education as medical historians
was ethics, actually.
What are the ethics in
doing medical history?
and so we formed a
working group we met
over the course of
about a year and a half
and I will give a
plug for a book now
because it just came out
three weeks ago this book
that's called Do Less
Harm, Ethical Questions
for Health Historians and
it's a sort of amazing
experience bringing
together we did have some MD
-PhDs in our group we had
archivists in our group we
had all sorts of historians
in this group but
thinking about not just
sort of the ethics of doing
medicine but what are
the ethical questions to
think about as you're doing
medical history, right?
Is it ethical for us to
actually use particular
patient sources? Is
it ethical for us
to, say, print particular
photographs in our
work or use them in
class? So it's, I think,
again, this is a
very special place
in that it values,
right, all of this
motley crew, I think,
as Travis said,
but also in letting us
find that space that is
not just a sort of straight
history. This is what
you do. This is your
historical training that
includes all of these other
fields and realms that
develops us into better
historians, I would say.
Thank you so much, everyone,
for these incredibly
thoughtful reflections.
It's such a
pleasure to hear about
your career trajectories.
I think what we might do
in the roughly 20 minutes
that we have is let me just
take a moment to reflect
on some of the threads
that I heard throughout the
conversation, and then we
can open up the floor to Q&A.
So a few things
that really sort of
stood out to me from
your reflections,
a commitment to public
-facing scholarship, to
engaging the community
and the wider public
in the work that you are
doing, and to translate
what sometimes can
be very specialized
kinds of knowledge to
reach a wider community.
A vibrant commitment to
interdisciplinary inquiry
and an interest in
thinking about how your
work is in conversation
with other fields, other
topics, and other methods
of exploring the world.
A commitment to community
engagement as well.
Tremendous research networks
that have been cultivated
here at UW, but then you've
taken those with you out
into the wider world and perhaps
arguably most importantly
a deep engagement with
teaching and with connecting
with students in the
classroom but even beyond the
classroom through final
projects through co-publications
as well and so I think
as we think about these
threads together it's all
very much in the spirit of the
Wisconsin idea and that the
legacy of UW and the program
here in MHB reaches out
into the world into our
classrooms and into our broader
global community. So thank
you for continuing that
legacy and that tradition.
I think what we'll do
now is take just a few
questions. So if you would
like to, we'll run some
mics through and we'd
like to open the floor for
any questions that you may
have for our panelists.
Thank you. It's wonderful
to be here and to hear from
all of you and all the
incredible work you've done. I'm
extremely impressed and
excited for the work you do.
The positionality, I think,
for history is really
important, especially right
now when there's so many
social political landscape
changes and I think a lot
of us are worried about
the changing narrative and
people trying to maybe
change the narrative of what
we've really experienced
in our country and how it
impacts how we move forward.
I'm wondering if you
could share with us any
perspectives you have as
historians that are optimistic
in terms of how history
can help us really move
forward in a positive way.
At least there's got to be
somebody who's optimistic it
was interesting i think dana
collected some questions
uh from graduate students
for us and one of a one of
them was sort of how do you
see the future and what are
you excited about and i
think there is a particular
future that involves a lot
more public engagement and a
lot more uh a bigger place
for historians professional
historians to do work that
is extremely relevant to
today i'm not sure i'm not
totally sure i'm excited
about it um but uh Certainly,
one of the things that I've
found myself doing in the
past few years is sort of
somewhat following in the
tradition of Leslie Reagan,
actually, is working on the
history of abortion laws in
the 19th century and working
with legal groups because
that's one of the new
trends is to have states, to
have Supreme Court justices
who sort of do history. and
so it is a positive movement
I would say that historians
are more and more being
involved in these conversations
are being involved in say
court cases that involve
the history and so I think
that's a good move even
though I'm a little depressed
that that has to happen
I will add something optimistic
um my experience with
teaching is mostly limited to
medical students at this point
in time as well as residents
and fellows um and i co
-facilitate a class on
medicine and society and i
would say that over the years
i've been in training i
have seen a strong growth in
medical humanities and
medical teaching and a strong
interest um in medical
humanities among my students and
i feel that the students
coming out of our institution
have a strong ethical
foundation, a strong interest
in the history of medicine,
medical ethics, the social
determinants of health, and
I have a lot of optimism
about those students. That
doesn't speak to the broader
changes in society around
us right now or the
particular historical moment
in terms of where we are
headed, but I find hope in
the individuals I train and
this broader trend in medical
education that I've seen.
Okay, I don't know how
optimistic this is going
to be, but I hope that
this is interesting.
You know, the moment
that we're in,
the public faith is
faltering in medicine, right?
And much of what
we were trained
to do is critique medicine.
So that feels bad.
Right? here we are
professional critics and you
know the public in a certain
way has caught on but
I almost think that this
challenges us in a new
direction right because the
critiques that you see reflected
in the public sphere
are not ours they're not
rooted in good faith efforts
to improve the medical
system let's say right so
you know I don't know if if
I'm optimistic about whether
or not this can happen but
i think there's a great
opportunity for our field
to become much more relevant
in making itself the voice
of reason when it comes
to restoring faith in the
science that we've for
decades been tearing down i'm
probably one of the older
or oldest person in the
room when and when in my
education um medical history
was taught in a very
celebratory way There were the
great advances, the great
progress, the great men.
Medical history in recent years
has been somewhat
less celebratory.
And as teachers in the
formative way of young
people who both want to
tear down their elders,
but also would like some
heroes and heroines.
I wonder how you work with
this mix in your teaching.
Thank you for that question.
This is something I think about
a lot as I teach
and as I write,
because working on the
history of childhood
developmental disability is
incredibly depressing in seeing
children who are
institutionalized at birth after
being diagnosed with
Down syndrome or who are
left, you know, not given
life-sustaining treatment
with the reason
that these lives
are so devalued historically.
And so it is always valuable
to see the people who
were working against that
historically. that I think it's
worth kind of like my own
cynicism about this history
and that like it's easy
to just get bogged down in
how awful so many that
the abuses that have been
perpetuated but that's not
the actual extent of medicine
that's not the actual extent
of the way that people
were cared for I find at
the same time like alongside
these stories parents who
are trying desperately to
keep their children in the
community, to keep their
children at home, to find
an education, to work with
doctors who also care about
these children and who want
them to have the best lives
possible and have a kind
of, are trying to expand
their understanding of what
the best life really means
and looks like. um and i i
do try and also think in
there's there's a real challenge
in teaching not to only
kind of tear down medicine
but to also think about
like when i teach vaccine
history i want my students
to know that vaccines are
incredible that like i we
the changes in the way They
work and they are in a much
broader way that public
health is much better today
than it was 200 years ago.
That we can actually
see, even as we can
understand the full
complexity of this
history, does include
real successes.
I take comfort in the
fact that most people
in America still do
want to vaccinate their
children. It's a very
loud but actually still
fringe voice that does
not want to vaccinate.
Um, and the recognizing,
like, that we have to kind
of, like, combat our own
instinct to tear down, um,
and without getting Whiggish
to recognize that success
has happened, that there
are people who, like, do
kind of, I, you know, there's,
there are heroes, even
in, like, the darkest of
histories. I could name one
right now but even places
where there are people who
some things they did were
terrible some things they did
were great I think it's
it's a challenge to actually
allow the allow complexity
to have goodness in it too
thank you again for the
for the question because
I'm actually working on
euros myself, right, in
some ways. But I wanted
to first ask if there
are, like, any international
students in the room.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, I wanted to speak
to, you know, even if
there's just one
international student, but
also to try to encourage
the department to continue
to, you know, take
international students.
And this is in relation
to the, you know, first
question about how international
students can try to
navigate this time. One of
the things that I think the
department can incorporate
into the program is to
have a sort of, I guess,
talk or workshop on what is
called EB2 NIW, which allows
for international students
to have ways to, if you
wanted to stay to, say,
teach or work in the U.S.,
you can get, like, a
pathway to, say, having a
green card, right, because
this is very critical
to, like, you know,
the mental health of
international students,
you know, at this time.
But to now return
to the question
around, you know, heroes,
I started this project,
you know, my project
because of this, you
know, a wonderful woman
who had to physically
restrain someone who had
brought the Ebola to
Nigeria, and you know,
one health worker was
telling me that, you know,
Nigeria will not remember
you, you know, so that,
you know, don't go out
there trying to be heroes.
And then my work ended up
being like, you know, trying,
looking for this community
of, you know, West African
medical practitioners who
has basically been forgotten
right in in the history of
um colonial medicine and
global health and i feel
like they you know did a lot
of fantastic work that should
be you know you know out
there um and one of the
blessing i think i would say
that um you know uw madison
is is that i was able to
because initially i was just
writing about like just people
that did like brilliant
works you trying to use their
biographies, use micro
-histories to tease them out.
But I got some pushback
to say, well, it's
not that all of those
guys, mostly men,
do not have their
problems, right?
It's not like there are
not ethical concerns around
them. It's not like
maybe they are, you know,
joined with, say, colonial
officers, you know,
officials to, say, do
experiments on bodies and
all that to just sort of
maintain that critical
distance, you know, from
the actors that I work
with. And I think that
there are ways in which
we can continue to do that
work of being critical,
you know, but also still
highlight, you know,
these, you know, so
-called heroes. I'll
add one more thing,
that I'm working on
something now on mourning
and mournability,
and I feel like in African
history in particular,
the ways in which the field
has developed meant that
colonial medicine emerged
as a field, you know,
which studies history of
biomedicine on the African
continent, or I think
broadly in colonial spaces,
has sort of centered the
history of European actors,
so good or so bad, whether
it is telling histories
of heroes in the field
or basically criticizing
doctors who use Africans
as experimental objects.
And then so I feel like
the work that historians
have done in the field is
to see, the way that I'm
making this argument is to
see that so-called research
objects are in the eyes
of colonial authorities
not mournable,
right? And then what I'm
trying to propose is that
by trying to rethink the
history of medicine and
centering these heroes
and centering people who
were like, well, this is
a new you know medical
practice i have say alien
traditions that i use in
treating myself and all
that and then you know
certain people who started
to be more embracing of
biomedicine to talk to see
them as a new way of writing
these histories that do
not always center the
do not center this attempt
at writing about um you
know african research
subjects right and then so
my work is then to try to
bring out characters that
were critical to the
development of biomedicine.
These guys were
inventing medical
technologies in the
early 20th centuries.
So, but still trying
to maintain a critical
distance to this actor.
I hope that answers
the question in the
context of Africa.
I'll have one brief
comment that is perhaps
slightly tangential, but
I think it's interesting.
So teaching medical
students and physicians,
I think that these
types of works hit a bit
differently. They hit
maybe close to home.
And so one thing that
I've noticed in the
medicine and society
class that I facilitate,
we do a lot of work
around the difficult
things that physicians
have done in the past,
some of the darker
aspects of medicine.
We have our students take
some implicit bias tests. So
they are in the position
of kind of confronting some
of their own biases around
race, sexuality, ethnicity.
And those are very challenging
sessions with the students.
And so some of the
sessions are related
to these challenging
topics. And then some
of the sessions
almost to me feel like
like group therapy in
a way we circle our
chairs we talk about our
difficult experiences
you know as a
facilitator I talk about
difficult experiences
I've had in patient care
and so I think it is
this move to try to bring
humanism to medical education
bring the humanities to
medical education but
also to help help medical
students have self-compassion
and I think that that's
been a positive trend in
medical training as well.
I also feel that the
perspective that's brought to
some of these challenging,
you know, racially
fraught or ethically fraught
situations, it's almost
like a root cause analysis.
So, you know, we don't
just look at, you know,
what that terrible physician
did, they were a terrible
person. You know, there
is this kind of way of
bringing in this root cause
analysis framework to
think about the broader
circumstances and try to
take away some of that blame
and some of the shame
that can go along with it.
A quick response. I think
because I came out of
my graduate education
very steeped in social
history, when I started
teaching, I sort of shifted
the heroism from the great
medical practitioners
to the heroism of the
everyday person, and
looking at how particular
groups that might have
previously been seen
as victims of medicine
actually had particular
control and agency over it.
I also live in a
minority-majority state.
I work at a public institution
that is Hispanic-serving,
that is Native-serving,
and it does not take much
to get my students to
critique American medical
system, right? These are people
who have personal experience
with historical trauma,
with health disparities,
with social determinants
of health. And I think by
relying on a lot of social
history, one of the things
I do want them to sort of
understand is their own
potential for heroism,
basically, as to use your word,
as a way that they, hopefully
that they can come out
of looking at this kind of
history and thinking about
their own role and how
they can work against some
of these medical systems
that have been against them.
Thank you for a wonderful
panel, and thank
you to Louis for typically
asking part of what
I've been pondering,
which was inspiration.
Last night's extraordinary
talk about a radical
enterprise in medical history,
for me, was framed by going
to the orthopedics and
rehabilitations research retreat,
and then a faculty meeting
this morning at the
retreat half of the enterprise
was dedicated to surgeons
recognizing their exquisitely
important billers right
now and they are widgets
who are being observed upon
heavily and they just want
to increase their efficiency
and so there was that
sense of reductiveness that
they were being they didn't
see it this way I did
they were being dehumanized
as labor entities and they
just wanted to get better
at being a labor entity and
then the faculty meeting
this morning the exhaustion
in the faculty was not
about what was happening to
them but um so there was no
complaining there was simply
observation they're using
ai scribes as opposed to
human scribes anymore and
they're losing the narrative
threat um the ai is simply
taking a patient's words
turning them into words
and there is no sense of
narratology and and so going
from inspiration which was i
think part of lewis's
question to what i would frame
as holism how do how have
you with the extraordinary
capability of this
department and your own non
-traditional backgrounds
entering medical history,
history of medicine,
how do you look for
other connectivities
that are not just
interdisciplinary but holistic?
They're pulling the whole
narrative back from
the edge of just words.
You're finding ways of raising
up from being a widget.
Most medical practitioners
now are heading into that
debacle of too few people
and too many patients as
we go through our shift in
the life cycle, it's not
just how do we inspire,
but how do we reverse part
of that narrative? And are
you seeing it in playing
together across disciplinary
spectrums? Are you
seeing it in different ways
of reaching out beyond blogs,
beyond podcasts, finding
other tools to do that.
So thank you for that
question. That's a very,
it's a challenging question.
I feel the pressure
on time, as I think
that all clinicians feel
the pressure on time,
and I do think it can be
reductive and can shrink
the space for humanism
in medicine and humanism
in clinical encounters.
I think I've been
fortunate in the sense that
I simply allow my
patient visits to expand
beyond the time they
are officially allowed
I'm notoriously behind and
notoriously verbose
in my note writing
I know that we have AI scribes
but I haven't used them yet
But I have several patients
who are actually very
attentive to how I write my
notes, and they will contact
me and tell me if I didn't
get something quite right.
And I've gone back and, you
know, corrected and edited.
And there have been times
when I've been dealing
with a tricky situation
in clinic where I want
to make sure I get it
right. And I actually sit
with a patient and I write
that part of their note
with them right then
and there because I want
to make sure that we both
agree on what it says.
And I don't think that
AI can ever do that.
I'm not entirely against
AI, though, in terms of
viewing it uniformly as a
dehumanizing technology that
totally reduces the
narrative aspect of medicine.
I think that to the extent
that it can free clinicians
from documenting routine
things, It can be a powerful
way of allowing physicians
to connect with patients.
And if not to capture the
full narrative on paper,
at least to have a full
narrative exchange rather
than being significantly
limited in the time that
you're spending with someone.
Or the attention, this
idea that you as a
clinician are locked to your
computer and you're not
looking your patient in the
eyes because you're just
punching little buttons.
So I don't know that I
have a great answer. I
think I take the time
that my patients need,
and I carve it out
of other places, and
that's how I help to
preserve the narrative.
I don't know that that solution
is sustainable
in the long term.
So I'm hoping that there
can be more of an organized
pushback against the
widgetization of medicine.
I think working at an
academic hospital, you know,
we tend to see the more
complex patients, and so, you
know, any kind of metric
that assumes that I can
see a patient in 15 minutes,
and they come in, and
this is the fourth opinion
about a very complex, very
difficult condition, that
15 minutes is never going
to cut it, so I think we
need some systemic change.
This discussion raises an
interesting question that
just came to my mind. um
you're talking about the
problems of clinical
medicine interfacing with
technology uh i uh the other
night went to a cap hour
for biotechnology uh this
is the home of epic what
and and bioethics and the
history of medicine do
you have any interaction
with the people at epic
because you know a lot of
the aspects of university
the university of wisconsin
does interact with
biotechnology here. Does
history of medicine do that?
I'll offer a comment in
that it's a general comment
about the electronic health
record. I haven't seen
interactions with, you know,
Epic and history of medicine
per se, but I do work at
the VA, and there actually
was a historical initiative
at the VA where oral
historians gathered veterans'
stories and entered those
stories as a note in the
chart. And so for certain
veterans, you can go and
you can read about their
military experiences and
their lives. And I actually
think it's a tremendously
rich source of information.
And so I do actually
think that there's
a lot of room for
doing some quality
historical work
with those records.
And I hope that we
do a good job kind of
documenting the social
history. Being very verbose
in my notes, I write
a pretty good social
history, if I do say so
myself. So I think we need
more historians trained
as clinicians so we
get a better context
for our patients' lives.
So I don't know if
anyone's doing this, but I
remember about 10 years
ago, Sue Lederer saying, it
would be a great project
for somebody to do a
history of the electronic
medical record. Not sure
if anyone's taken her up
on that, but certainly
there's work that could
be done on that and the
way that it has profoundly
changed. I mean, EPIC
has transformed, I think,
the clinical experience
both from a provider and
a patient perspective.
Question.
I'm curious, just building
on that last question,
I'm curious what you
think about the future
intersection of technology
and medical history.
What trends or topics
do you anticipate
coming up in the near future? I
guess this is a good
time to talk about
my next greatest
research project.
Yeah, no, I think that
this is a very interesting
topic, but there's too
much to say, obviously. But
one way in which this is
coming out in my work,
you know, technology was not
a big part of my original
research project, which
is about American dieting
culture. I mean, diet is a
form of technology, but it's
not high technology in the
way that I assume you mean.
However, everything
about my narrative
basically is unwound
by the Internet.
Traditional forms of even
alternative expertise dissolve
in the face of social
media and things like this.
And I'm very interested
in how exactly communities
did form in the era of
social media. But also as a
technological question,
which is like, what is the
relationship between the actual
technological platform and
the communities that arise
on that platform, right?
To what extent are the social
conditions of the people
who design the technological
platforms thereby
influencing what is possible
on those platforms, right?
I see that this is an
incredibly important
question that I don't
think too many people are
grappling with in a serious
way, right? I mean, we
do think about the dilemmas
of, you know, social
media users and things
like this, but not
necessarily as critical
of the founder fluencers'
own biases in, you know,
in the way that they
sort of like creep out and
make possible different
sorts of realities,
different kinds of thinking,
right? different sorts
of patient communities
that emerge as a result
of just the architecture
of these platforms that
we've been handed, right?
At least that's how
I'm taking the sort of
future of medical
history and technology.
Yeah, I have a very short
response to it because
I am actually doing like a
conference slash workshop
at Brown on the history
of medical technology,
science, and global
health. And, you know,
I am trying to
invite, you know,
scholars in the
history of science,
like public health,
public healing,
right? And part of what we
are trying to do, and this
is the, you know, I don't
know, this is like in the
African context, but also
related to global health,
right? And part of the premise
is just that, you know,
we should really,
I mean, starting
from where I think
Travis started,
take even plant rights
as technologies, you
know, by taking it
seriously, for example.
If you are thinking about
concerns around, say,
vaccines, why do certain
communities reject
vaccines? we can have, like,
more nuanced conversations
around, oh, why would
people reject vaccines,
right? If we have a
history of technology
or medical technology
that is steeped, right,
in, say, you know, West
African cultures, right,
it can then allow better
communication, right, of, you
know, by public health,
you know, officials today
around, you know, the ethics
of the vaccine, vaccine
inequities, you know, and
questions like that. So this is
what I'm currently actually
grappling with, you know,
in relation to my
book projects. I
think we are close to
time. I just want to take a
moment to thank our fantastic
speakers, and we will
reconvene back in this room
in about 15 minutes at 10.30
for our next panel. Please
join me in thanking them.