AAHM News: Statement on COVID-19

The officers of the American Association for the History of Medicine are monitoring the spread of COVID-19, and its implications for our annual meeting.  Many professional organizations have cancelled upcoming meetings.  The officers are reviewing statements issued by the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and are in close contact with the AAHM Local Arrangements and Program Committees.  As of March 10, 2020, the officers and the committees have elected not to cancel the meeting and to continue to follow developments with COVID-19.

It is quite possible that decisions made by the University of Michigan, City of Ann Arbor, State of Michigan, and various federal agencies may take the decision about the annual meeting out of the Association’s hands. As of March 10, 2020, none of the above-mentioned entities have restricted domestic travel or forbidden large meetings.

Some members may want to wait before making a decision to attend the annual meeting. AAHM will make refunds without penalty to all who register if the meeting is cancelled. AAHM also will refund those who have registered and later decide they cannot attend. The AAHM will be flexible about its requirement to register by April 7 for people who appear on the program. In addition, we have waived the late fee so that individuals can register until April 30 at the early registration rate. Our meeting hotels, the Kensington and the Even will hold our reserved room blocks until April 24, 2020.

The AAHM Officers and the Local Arrangements and Program Committees will send another notification to all members and those who have registered for the annual meeting by March 31, or sooner if events warrant.

Susan Lederer

AAHM President

AAHM News: Orals Bibliographies for Students

The AAHM is updating its repository of bibliographies. This repository is a tool to aid graduate students who are building readings lists in preparation for their qualifying examinations in fields related to the History of Medicine.

We are especially seeking new contributions related to the following categories:
– Health Activism
– Disability History
– Drug/Pharmaceutical History
– Gender, Reproduction, and Sexuality in Medicine
– Public Health
– Medical Ethics
– Race and Medicine
– Medical/Health Humanities
– Homeopathy/Alternative Medicine
– Miscellaneous
These categories are permeable in nature and only represent a general grouping, rather than strict sub-disciplinary divisions. That being said, we welcome a variety of types of comp lists that speak to the History of Medicine or Medical/Health Humanities.
If you would like to contribute your exam book list to the repository, please email it in .pdf form to the Chair of the Education and Outreach Committee, Claire Clark (claire dot clark at uky dot edu). We ask that you redact all personally identifying information (i.e. your name, institution, and examiner).

Congratulations to the 2019 AAHM Award Winners

The American Association for the History of Medicine honored the following individuals at its award ceremony on April 27, 2019 in Columbus, Ohio, TN as part of the 92nd annual meeting:

Osler Medal: Tiffany Kay Brocke, Johns Hopkins University, “Race and Reputation: The Influence of the Johns Hopkins Hospital on Abortion Access in Baltimore, 1945-1973.”; Honorable mention: Christopher Magoon, University of Pennsylvania, “Mao’s Pacifist ‘Friends’: The Friends Ambulance Unit and the Limits of Medical Humanitarianism in China”

Shryock Medal: Kevin George McQueeney, Department of History, Georgetown University, “The City That Care Forgot: The Long Civil Rights Struggle Over African American Health and the Perpetuation of Apartheid Healthcare in Twentieth Century New Orleans”; Honorable mention: Spencer J. Weinreich, Department of History, Princeton University, “Legal and Medical Authority in the Newgate Smallpox Experiment (1721)”

J. Worth Estes Prize:Aimee Medeiros and Elizabeth Siegel Watkins, “Live Longer Better: The Historical Roots of Human Growth Hormone as Anti-Aging Medicine, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 73 (3 2018): 333-359

Pressman-Burroughs Wellcome: Joelle Abi-Rached, Columbia University

George Rosen Prize: Sarah Leavitt, curator “Architecture of an Asylum: St Elizabeth’s 1852-2017”, National Building Museum, Washington, DC

Welch Medal: Pablo Gómez, The Experiential Caribbean: Creating Knowledge and Healing in the Early Modern Atlantic (University of North Carolina Press, 2017)

Genevieve Miller Lifetime Achievement Award: Jacalyn Duffin

The Garrison Lecturer for 2020: Evelynn M. Hammonds, Chair, Department of the History of Science, the Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science and Professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard University

Lectures: Online CME in the History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University

The Department of the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins is proud to introduce new online Continuing Medical Education modules that provide a historical perspective on issues of relevance to clinical practice today.

For more information on these CME modules entitled “Professionalism in Historical Context” and “History of Global Health,” visit https://www.hopkinshistoryofmedicine.org/content/online-cme-modules-history-medicine-0.

Congratulations to AAHM Award Winners

The American Association for the History of Medicine honored the following individuals at its award ceremony on May 5, 2017 on the campus of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN as part of the 90th annual meeting:

Osler Medal: Christopher Sterwald, Duke University Medical School, for “Frosted Intellectuals: How Leo Kanner Constructed the Autistic Family”; First honorable mention:  Sarah Tapp, Emory University School of Medicine, for “’Mothers, Mongols, and Mores’: Physician Advice to Parents of Newborns with Down Syndrome in the Mid 20th Century; and Second honorable mention:  Matthew Edwards, University of Texas Medical Branch School of Medicine, for “Freedom House Ambulance Service: Race and the Rise of Emergency Medical Services, 1967-1975”

Shryock Medal: Wangui Muigai  ‘All My Babies: Black Midwifery and Health Training Films in the 1950s’, Princeton University, Program in History of Science; First honorable mention: Vicki (Fama) Daniel ‘Medical Identification and the Emergence of a Forensic Paradigm at the 1949 Noronic Disaster’, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Program in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology; and Second honorable mention: Elaine La Fay “‘The slandered torrid zone”: Medicine, Botany, and Imperial Visions of the American Tropics along the US Gulf Coast, 1820-1840’, University of Pennsylvania, History and Sociology of Science Department

J. Worth Estes Prize: Anna E. Winterbottom, “Of the China Root: A Case Study of the Early Modern Circulation of Materia Medica.” Social History of Medicine 28 (2015): 22-44

Pressman-Burroughs Wellcome: Rachel Elder, University of Pennsylvania

George Rosen Prize: Marcos Cueto and Steven Palmer, Medicine and Public Health in Latin America: A History (Cambridge University Press, 2014)

Welch Medal: Johanna Schoen for her book, Abortion After Roe:  Abortion After Legalization (University of North Carolina Press, 2015)

Genevieve Miller Lifetime Achievement Award: Daniel Fox

The Garrison Lecturer for 2018: Julie Fairman, Professor of Nursing, Professor, Department of History and Sociology of Science, Chair, Department of Biobehavioral Health Sciences, Endowed Chair, Nightingale Professor in Honor of Nursing Veterans, Co-Director, RWJF Future of Nursing Scholars Program at the University of Pennsylvania

Medical Historians in the News: Congressional briefings on Zika

On September 12, 2016 AAHM Past President Margaret Humphreys (Josiah Trent Professor in the History of Medicine, Duke University) participated in congressional briefings on “Zika: Historic Parallels and Policy Responses,” sponsored by the National History Center of the American Historical Association. AAHM Council member Alan Kraut of American University introduced the session, and John McNeill of Georgetown University  was the co-presenter.  For more information and video of the presentation, visit: http://www.mehumphreys.com/dc-zika

AAHM Speakers’ Bureau

Do you like to talk to the media about the history of medicine?

Do you like to help independent investigators discover research materials related to our discipline?

Do you like speaking to the general public about our specialized field of history?

If so, AAHM wants you! AAHM has established a speakers’ bureau to connect our members with those interested in our special expertise in the history of medicine. Please consider signing up today and sharing your expertise with us.  Sign up by completing this form. Only names, contact information, and publication lists will be shared with those asking for a history of medicine specialist. The AAHM speakers’ bureau list will not be posted online, distributed in blast emails, or circulated on listservs.

AAHM News: New Pedagogy Section in the Bulletin

New Pedagogy Section in the Bulletin/Call for Syllabi

The Bulletin of the History of Medicine will be adding a three-part focus on pedagogy beginning with its 2016 volume. The spring issue will introduce a new journal section covering topics related to teaching in the history of medicine today. Along with the print section, the journal will debut a pedagogy blog, a more immediate and informal place for the history of medicine teaching community to share what has worked in their diverse classrooms. In addition, the Bulletin will be maintaining a syllabus archive, similar to the one previously hosted by the NLM. Interested contributors to the pedagogy section, blog, or syllabus archive should contact the Bulletin’s editors at bhm@jhmi.edu. Please send all syllabi as PDF files.

Congratulations to AAHM Award Winners!

The American Association for the History of Medicine honored the following individuals at its award ceremony and 90th anniversary celebration on May 2, 2015 at the Commons on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, CT:

Osler Medal: Julia Cockey Cromwell, (Johns Hopkins University),“Viral Knowledge: Autopsy and the 1918 Influenza Pandemic”
Honorable Mention: John Thomas Stroh, (University of Kansas School of Medicine, Class of 2014 and resident at the Children’s National Medical Center, Washington, DC) “The English Reformation and the Birth of London’s Royal Hospitals”

Shryock Medal: Marissa Mika, (University of Pennsylvania),“Surviving Experiments: Burkitt’s Lymphoma Research in Idi Amin’s Uganda”
Honorable Mention:Cara Kiernan Fallon, (Harvard University),“Husbands’ Hearts and Women’s Health: Gender and Heart Disease in Twentieth-Century America”

J. Worth Estes Prize: Hoi-eun Kim, “Cure for Empire: The ‘Conuer-Russia-Pill,’ Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, and the Making of Patriotic Japanese, 1904-45,” Medical History 57 (2013): 249-68

Pressman-Burroughs Wellcome: Deborah Blythe Doroshow, Yale University, for her project, “Emotionally Disturbed: The Care and Abandonment of America’s Troubled Children”

George Rosen Prize: Margaret Humphreys for her book, Marrow of Tragedy: The Health Crisis of the American Civil War (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013)

Welch Medal: Leslie J. Reagan for her book Dangerous Pregnancies: Mothers, Disabilities, and Abortion in Modern America (University of California Press, 2010)

Genevieve Miller Lifetime Achievement Award: Caroline Hannaway

The Garrison Lecturer for 2016: Susan E. Lederer, Robert Turell Professor of Medical History and Bioethics and Chair of the Department of Medical History and Bioethics, University of Wisconsin