HomeThe Crispell Lecture in the History of the Health Sciences: When the Famous Get Sick and the Sick Get Famous: How Celebrity Patients Influence Medicine
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Lou Gehrig, Steve McQueen, Margaret Bourke-White, Rita Hayworth, Barney Clark, Lorenzo Odone (of "Lorenzo's Oil")—these persons' fame rests as much (or more) on illness as on their life-accomplishments. Beginning with Gehrig, celebrity patients have increasingly divulged their diagnoses, and the media and public have increasingly claimed a right to know. Further, in a society where medical advances are headline news, we make stars out of patients on the leading edge of medical therapeutics. But while celebrity illnesses give us opportunities to learn about diseases and treatments, at the same time they can be sources of misleading information.
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play duration:102::16 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:00:00 -0400
Thinking about Healing - One Scholar's Journey
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This Medical Center Hour is a conversation with distinguished historian and literary scholar of the Middle Ages Brian Stock. This expert on (among other subjects) the history of reading and its connections with meditation and self-knowledge actually began his studies as a student of medicine. How has his work evolved across his career, and what connections does he see now between his scholarship and a continuing interest in science, therapeutics, and the dynamics of healing?
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play duration:103::17 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:00:00 -0400
MEDICAL ERROR AND THE ETHICS OF FORGIVENESS
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The Institute of Medicine's landmark report on medical error in U.S. hospitals, To Err is Human (1999) continues to propel efforts to promote patient safety and prevent medical harm. This report's title hints at the proverbial relationship between error and forgiveness—To err is human, to forgive, divine—yet “systems” approaches to medical error may have difficulty incorporating forgiveness as a response to human error and as part of an effective program of patient safety. In her remarkable book, After Harm: Medical Error and the Ethics of Forgiveness, Nancy Berlinger draws on insights from scholarship in religion and culture to suggest how forgiveness, long recognized as having a restorative role between individuals and within communities, might inform our response to medical error. This Medical Center Hour explores how the idea and practice of forgiveness can potentially help clinicians, health care institutions, and medical educators address medical harm in productive ways, even while avoiding the dangers of prescribing forgiveness as the solution to harm. Insights about forgiveness can further help medical students come to terms with the sensitive matter of their own fallibility and its potential impact on patients and families and aid early-career physicians struggling with these issues at the most personal level.
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play duration:59::51 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:00:00 -0400
BEYOND, NOT BY, THE NUMBERS: QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN MEDICAL EDUCATION
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Although qualitative research has been around for a long time, it has only recently begun to gain acceptance and respect in the health professions. Its inherent logic is not generally understood and how its methods can effectively be applied to medical education research is similarly misunderstood. Dr. Hafler aims to clarify some basic concepts of qualitative research and its potential in medical education research.
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play duration:100::30 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:00:00 -0400
Who's Working for Whom? Commercialization of Biomedical Research and Education
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Conflicts of interest for physicians, especially those practicing in academic health centers, are at once less obvious and more substantive today than just pharmaceutical company sponsorship of lunches or CME opportunities. This Medical Center Hour explores how conflicts of interest are a common occurrence for many academic clinical investigators, teachers, and clinicians, how physician judgment is susceptible to external influence, and how institutions—including UVA—are not only drafting policies for addressing conflicts of interest but also developing ways to help physicians recognize and manage the conflicts they experience.
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play duration:102::26 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:00:00 -0400
BEYOND SAFETY AND EFFICACY: SHOULD THE FDA CONSIDER ETHICS IN DRUG APPROVALS?
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Independent writer and journalist on business and social policy, and author of Inside the FDA: The Business and Politics Behind the Drugs We Take and the Food We Eat.
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play duration:100::51 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:00:00 -0400
CHANGING VIRGINIA'S MENTAL HEALTH LAWS: BEFORE AND AFTER THE VIRGINIA TECH TRAGEDY
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James Stewart, Commonwealth Inspector General of Mental Health, and Richard Bonnie, Chair of the State Supreme Court's commission on mental health, discuss reforming Virginia's mental health system. What's being proposed, and why? How will changes in state law serve patients, their families, and the public?
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play duration:102::00 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:00:00 -0400
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: GLOBAL AND LOCAL STRATEGIES FOR HEALTHY EATING
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We are what we eat. But what are we eating these days, and why,
and with what health and social effects? This Medical Center Hour explores the new attentiveness to the foods we consume, with emphasis both on the complicated marketplace choices (natural? organic? genetically modified?) and on the power of local food to sustain not only our bodies but also community in its deepest and most enduring sense.
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play duration:101::50 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:00:00 -0400
WHAT IS "DEAD" ANYWAY? DETERMINING DEATH FOR ORGAN TRANSPLANTATION
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When organ and tissue transplantation is a possibility, how do physicians determine that a prospective donor has died so that organs may be procured? Determination of death by neurologic criteria ("brain death") is legal in the U.S. and many (though not all) other countries, and it's medically preferable, since optimal organ perfusion can be maintained until procurement. But by all appearances a brain-dead donor on life support doesn't seem "dead." Understanding the history as well as the science of determining death can help clinicians, families, and even prospective donors manage this challenging emotional and psychological aspect of transplantation medicine.
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play duration:105::13 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 14 Nov 2007 17:00:00 -0400
DO TRAINED NURSES ... WORK FOR LOVE, OR DO THEY WORK FOR MONEY?
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In marked contrast to medicine, nursing is a field in which philanthropic and altruistic ideals conflict sharply with professional self-determination. The conflict is most evident in the economics of being a nurse. While philanthropists and altruistic agents seldom seek economic gain or even parity for their efforts, professionals- who have devoted years to developing a particular expertise-expect to be paid well for their work and to be recognized in other ways as well. What is the historical basis for nursing's dilemma around dollars? Can the profession rethink its ambivalence toward money?
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play duration:105::03 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 7 Nov 2007 17:00:00 -0400
MEDICINE IN THE GENOMICS ERA
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This keynote address for the UVA School of Medicine's annual Medical Student Research Symposium highlights medical research at the frontiers of science through examination of genomics researcher Stephen Rich's work on Type One diabetes. Dr. Rich's talk also offers glimpses of a life in science and the scientist's commitment to the health of the public.
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play duration:101::40 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 17:00:00 -0400
BABIES BY DESIGN: ETHICS AND GENETIC ENHANCEMENT
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Advances in genetics and reproductive technologies, as well as changing social mores around "enhancement medicine," make it increasingly possible for couples or individuals to design their offspring by selecting for (or against) certain genetically influenced traits or tendencies. What are the ethics of genetic enhancement for prospective parents, to be sure, but also for their larger communities and for the health professionals providing necessary services?
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play duration:101::30 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 17:00:00 -0400
CULTURAL COMPETENCE IN CLINICAL CARE
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Pediatric surgeon and bioethicist Farhat Moazam is at home in two worlds-Pakistan, where she was born, studied medicine, and enjoyed much of her career; and the U.S., where she trained and practiced as a surgeon, then took degrees in bioethics. What qualities and skills do bioethicists and clinicians require to practice effectively at home-wherever home is-and to traverse cultural divides with patients, peers, and policymakers?
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play duration:101::30 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 17:00:00 -0400
THE WOUNDED BREAST: A PATIENT'S CANCER JOURNEY
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Lebanese-American scholar Evelyne Accad writes eloquently of her personal experience with breast cancer and also looks at breast cancer through anthropological, political and cultural lenses to offer a sense of how this disease affects women of and in the Middle East. How are health and health care around breast cancer bound up with politics, religion, the culture of science, artistic expression, and the social status of women in the Middle East-and even in the U.S.?
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play duration:100::35 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 17:00:00 -0400
ROOT SHOCK: THE IMPACT OF URBAN RENEWAL ON HEALTH
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Urban renewal projects in the 1950s-1970s bulldozed entire districts and traumatically displaced hundreds of African American communities. The residents of these areas experienced "root shock" from the destruction of their physical and emotional ecosystems. With this perspective on urban renewal, including projects like Charlottesville's Vinegar Hill, what can we learn about the health status of urban African Americans and the health of our cities and neighborhoods?
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play duration:100::56 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 3 Oct 2007 17:00:00 -0400
WHAT'S THE GOOD IN "GOOD MEDICINE"? THE PLACE OF BIOETHICS AND THE HUMANITIES IN MEDICINE
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For nearly 40 years, biomedical ethics and medical humanities have been part of medical education and medical practice in the U.S. and Europe. Often seen as upholding what's "good" or most virtuous in medicine, at UVA they have had influence since the late 1960s and had a formal place in curricula, training and practice since the late 1980s. How are these disciplines understood now, in light of current challenges to practice and professionalism-and in view of the recent Center for Biomedical Ethics and Humanities merger? How do they contribute to what we understand to be "good medicine"?
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play duration:52:28:00 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 26 Sep 2007 17:00:00 -0400
DISPLAYING DEAD AND DIFFERENT BODIES: SPECTACLE/SIDESHOW/EDUCATION?
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It's rare today in the developed world to encounter a cadaver, see human viscera, or confront bodies that bear significant disfigurement. Society has segregated these specimens of bodily presentation, allowing only medical, police and military personnel to transgress these secret places of human embodiment. Now, touring exhibits of plastinated, dissected human cadavers are drawing crowds. What's our fascination when we behold the body so exhibited? Who should have access to dead or irregular bodies? What are the ethics of human display?
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play duration:59:01:00 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:00:00 -0400
BEING THERE: MEDICAL STUDENT SERVICE AFTER 9/11
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For months following September 11, 2001, 20 NYU medical students volunteered in the office of the city's chief medical examiner to sort, catalog, and identify human remains. Interested in these students' experiences, scientist-artist Barry Goldstein photographed and interviewed them. His exhibit, Being There, explores the complex impulses that prompted students to volunteer and the challenges and consequences of their service.
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play duration:56:45:00 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 12 Sep 2007 17:00:00 -0400
The Agony of Hope: The Decision to Put David Vetter into the Bubble
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David Vetter, who was known to the world as "David the 'Bubble Boy'' was born with a rare genetic disease called Severe Combined Immune Deficiency (SCID). He lived all but a few days of his short life (1971-1984) in an isolator, trapped behind sheets of plastic, confined within a tiny space, untouched by human hands and unable to touch others in return.The presentation will examine the decision to place David in the isolator literally seconds after he was born, and will pay careful attention to the ethical issues that are raised by David's case, which from beginning to end blurred the lines between treatment and research.
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play duration:48:23:00 (minutes)Posted: Thu, 12 Apr 2007 17:00:00 -0400
What Can a Patient-Oriented History of Diabetes Teach Us about Medical Decision-making?
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What if many --or even most --medical decisions are made by decision-making processes that differ substantially from standard notions of weighing risks and benefits of treatment options? Drawing on a remarkable archive of letters that people with diabetes wrote over the course of decades to their physicians, the talk will examine how patients and doctors made decisions as this disease was transformed from an acutely lethal condition before the discover of insulin to a chronic and still too-often debilitating malady.
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play duration:51:49:00 (minutes)Posted: Tue, 14 Mar 2007 17:00:00 -0400
The History of Geriatric Medicine
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The presentation will review the care of elderly people throughout history, from ancient times to the present, and will emphasize cross-cultural comparisons.
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play duration:49:49:00 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 17:00:00 -0400
Vietnam Graffiti: Messages from a Forgotten Troopship
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An abandoned troopship that took soldiers to three wars, including Vietnam, was found loaded with historic relics in Virginia's James River Reserve Fleet by military artifact historian Art Beltrone of Keswick. The relics, including graffiti- inscribed bunk canvases, provide a personal look at the mindset and emotions of young men going to war. Logs kept by the ship's master, or captain, described the myriad of accidents that plagued sailors and soldiers alike during the voyage aboard the ship, which was more than two football fields in length. Some of these wounds were treated in the ship's operating room.
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play duration:29:33:00 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 17:00:00 -0400
Kerr L. White Website Grand Opening
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Grand Opening of the Kerr White Health Care Collection Web Site (http://historical.hsl.virginia.edu/kerr/) and Reception in honor of DR. KERR L. WHITE Remarks by Dr. Kerr L. White, Dr. Robert E. Reynolds, Acting Chair of the Department of Public Health Sciences in the UVa School of Medicine, and members of the Library's Web site team.
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play duration:30:02:00 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 18 Oct 2006 15:00:00 -0400
Interview with Dr. Kerr White
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Dr. Robert E. Reynolds, acting chair of the department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Virginia, interviews Dr. Kerr White about his career and legacy. Dr. White is an internationally recognized pioneer in the fields of Health Services Research and Primary Care Medicine. This interview is in conjunction with the Kerr White Health Care Collection, which White donated to the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library. The collection includes books, reports, journals and White's own papers dealing with a variety of health issues and problems experienced by diverse populations.
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play duration:38:52:00 (minutes)Posted: Thu, 7 Sep 2006 09:50:12 -0400
Haunting Images: Dissection, Photography, and American Medical Students
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Medical students began to photograph the cadaver dissection process barely five years after the advent of the daguerreotype, as a way to preserve this central event of their medical education. James Edmonson, Ph.D., discusses the rise and fall of this phenomena and how we look at this period of history today.
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play duration:37:55:00 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 13:18:59 -0400
"What's in a Name? Histories of Mary Mallon and Typhoid Mary"
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A childhood doggerel claims that "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me." This talk suggests, rather, that names can hurt, and they also can change the course of a life, of history, of how historians tell history, and, most specifically, of how stigmatizing names can affect efforts to protect the public's health. A 2004 NOVA film, The Most Dangerous Woman in the World, based on Professor Leavitt's recent book, Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public's Health, has been nominated for an Emmy in the historical documentary category.
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play duration:52:04:00 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 11:01:38 -0400
Aviation Medicine in Ophthalmology
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Just over 100 years ago the Wright brothers ushered in the era of powered man flight. As more accidents and fatalities resulted from increased air travel and combat, attempts were made to develop criteria for screening and selection of pilots. Dr. Newman will trace the history of the development of the importance of vision in aviation and provide insight into how theories are formulated and how bureaucracies often have a difficult time in changing standards and requirements.
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play duration:50:28:00 (minutes)Posted: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 11:01:38 -0400
Intensely Human: The Health of Black Soldiers in the American Civil War
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As the Civil War entered its third year the fate of black slaves occupied center stage among northern thinkers. Could the black man become a productive citizen? Would black people be able to care for themselves, and remain healthy? Would the black man make a good soldier? In 1863 and 1864 some 180,000 black men entered the Union army, and many hoped the experience would train them in citizenship skills. An alarming number died of disease, which led some to claim that the black body was inherently weak, unable to survive the rigors of the army and the modern world. This talk explores the disease experience of the black soldier and the factors which caused such high morbidity and mortality during the Civil War.
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play duration:56:43:00 (minutes)Posted: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 15:41:32 -0400
The Last Days of the Iron Lung
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U.Va Professor Emeritus Dudley F. Rochester tells stories about working with the iron lung, once an important device for people with severe respiratory failure. He talks about the advances made in technology that made the iron lung obsolete.
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play duration:34:34:00 (minutes)Posted: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 13:18:12 -0400
Climate Change, Human Agency, and Health in Early America
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Professor Fleming looks at the writings of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Rush, and Noah Webster that reflect their thoughts on the relationship of climate and health, and the lasting implications of these ideas for the Lewis and Clark Expedition and a subsequent generation of American climatologists and physicians.